At the Wilderness Society tent I talked with Spencer Phillips, here shown holding his young daughter Claudia. Spencer is an economist working in a D.C. Office. We discussed the "takings" issues.
"Taking of private property without just compensation is prohibited by the Constitution. Always has been. Why is this a problem now?" I asked him.
"Thats true. But what is happening now is that whole new property rights are being created by this proposed legislation."
"What do you mean, 'new property right'. Property is property, right?"
"Not really. Its never been considered a property right to hurt other people. There's no right to pollute; that hurts the common interest. So, how can regulating pollution be a taking? No doubt, there have been some extreme cases; cases where somebody has been an excellent steward of the land for a long time, and everybody around them has subdivided, and developed, and then it turns out that the government wants to take away that property because there's so little. But I don't think that happens very often."
"President Clinton seemed to say he was going to be using his veto to stop some of these changes.
"Yes, and I think its important that he get support on that. A similar situation is on the timber salvage question."
"Aren't there times when that's not such a bad idea? To prevent a buildup of tinder that could cause a Yellowstone type conflagration. There's been a lot of fire suppression in areas where a fire regimen was part of the natural cycle."
"There may be limited situations, but it needs to be done more slowly than what's going on now."
Spencer also pointed out that the tax code needs to be examined for policies that are anti-environmental. "These issues, like the timber salvage issue, are very complex. They require a thoughtful debate. People using your service on the Internet may be interested in subscribing to the discussion groups; they're very active right now. I participate in ECOL-ECON on csf@colorado.edu. Watch for contributions by Robert Castanza, he's an excellent contributor to these discussions."