Free Republic

Washington, D.C.-Nearly one year after the U.S. Supreme Court's shocking Kelo v. New London decision touched off a firestorm of bipartisan support for stronger property rights protections, some anti-property rights groups are receiving support from a surprising source: Senator George Allen (R-VA).Senator Allen is the chief sponsor of legislation that would create a massive federal "National Heritage Area" that would stretch from Charlottesville, VA, through Frederick County, MD, and end in Gettysburg, PA. Such areas are best described as heavily regulated corridors where property rights may be strictly curtailed.

Heritage Areas implement federal zoning, plain and simple. Proponents of these disasters can spin it any which way they want. The truth is that federal money for Heritage Areas is administered through the National Park Service to radical preservation and conservation groups that are hell-bent to lock away anything and everything within the Heritage Area that they see fit. In fact, in the actual Heritage Area bills, local greens ARE DIRECTED to lock away and preserve everything in sight. Only this time, with National Heritage Areas, the Park Service formally teams up with local greens to take away YOUR private...

In New Jersey, not exactly famous for its forests, a large fire broke out in the Pinelands in early June, threatening homes and other structures before it was brought under control. In California, Colorado, and other States, homeowners are not so lucky as the beginning of yet another spate of cataclysmic forest fires occurs again. You protect forests by providing for their proper management and that means timber companies have to come in and thin the old and diseased trees. Overgrown brush has to be removed as well. The US timber industry has been systematically attacked by environmentalists for decades...