Takings is foolish public policy. It puts America’s health at risk by rolling back 25 years of bipartisan environmental progress. It shifts the financial, legal and moral burden of dealing with pollution from polluters to victims. It gives too much power to big developers and large scale extractive industries such as mining and agribusiness. It harms the property owner whose property is protected by strong environmental laws; or the worker whose health and safety is dependent on laws that protect the workplace.
Takings is an end run on land use conflicts. Rather than deal with the consequences of land use issues at home, big developers (the key sponsors of HR1534) want to settle these disputes in Washington D.C. We think this is a bad idea and takes power away from local officials and residents. Planning for our growth depends on strong zoning laws that encourage development in certain areas while limiting development in others.
Zoning laws and planned growth is good neighbor policy and to most of us in Wisconsin, makes common sense. For example, local zoning laws may prevent a large hog farm from expanding a barnyard near a trout stream or deny a proposal for a 24 hr. car wash or a porn shop from being built in a residential neighborhood. But big developers and big mining companies aren’t happy when such projects are denied. To get around local decisionmakers and local courts and to avoid the consequences of their actions - they think we should have federal judges solve our problems.
We oppose such short-sighted measures. Takings is a bad neighbor bill and we urge Sen. Kohl and Feingold to oppose this bill and keep local decision making at home, here in Wisconsin.
The Coalition for the Common Good is made up of the Wisconsin Alliance
of Cities, the League of Municipalities, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Wisconsin
Association of Lakes, the Sierra Club - John Muir Chapter, and Wisconsin's
Environmental Decade.