Property Rights Bill

* This letter responds to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s alarmist column (“Rights vs. Wrongs,” Commentary, April 1) on property rights legislation scheduled to come up for a vote soon in the Senate. His view reflects some of the most serious misunderstandings of the need for and purpose of such legislation.

First, contrary to Secretary Babbitt’s statement, the property rights movement is in total agreement with the goals of environmental protection. What property rights supporters oppose are regulations that take private property without paying the owner for it.

Today, environmental regulations touch almost every conceivable aspect of property use and ownership. Through its ability to regulate, the government has steadily and increasingly tended to “take” whatever uses and benefits of property it wishes rather than condemning the property and taking it outright and paying the owner for the land. This has made terms like “endangered species” and “wetland” some of the most feared words imaginable to property owners.

Moreover, through the arbitrary enforcement of these laws, countless individuals have had their retirement funds, family farms and lifetime earnings utterly wiped out.

It is the regulatory nightmare--not hatred of endangered species or wetlands--that has fueled the property rights movement. Twenty-three states enacted property rights laws in the past few years. Moreover, in March 1995, the House passed the first property rights bill ever.

Second, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the legislation will not have a significant effect on the federal budget. In fact, the CBO has indicated that such legislation will actually save money by heading off lawsuits that have already resulted in the government paying out millions in adverse “taking” judgments.

What Babbitt and others opposed to property rights legislation fail to see is that property rights are a civil right and that property rights and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive goals.

NANCIE G. MARZULLA

President and Chief Legal Counsel

Defenders of Property Rights

Washington

* Babbitt’s commentary on how the American people are being made fools of by the Republicans being printed on April 1 was especially ironic. Under the guise of the “contract with America,” Republicans have consistently eroded environmental laws and legislation to the benefit of a few while continuing the process of degrading the heritage of our great land.

The right and moral thing to do is clear: protect our environment for our children and our future, not for shortsighted special interests. It is time that they stop this war on the environment and do what is right for our country’s future--protect it!

RICHARD WEGMAN

Pacific Palisades