State Index

New information added on October 1, 2007

“Mexican Drug Cartels Are Growing Marijuana in U.S. National Parks and Forests,” News Brief, PRFA, August 2007 “Oregon Supreme Court Upholds Regulatory Takings Compensation Law” - Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA Update, February 21, 2006 November 2004: Oregon Measure 37 Takings compensation and relief from land use regulation - Enacted by Oregon’s voters in a statewide referendum on November 2, 2004 January 2001: “Oregon Voters Protect Property Rights”   Additional Helpful Organizations Oregon Council of Motor Vehicle Associations (organization of Oregon automobile hobbyists) address Oregonians in Action (Influential property rights group, brought Dolan v. Tigard successfully) address “Voice of the Wallowas” Published by: Wallowa’s Future Foundation “Voice of the Wallowas,” first published in November 2005, is “An in-depth periodical dedicated to the Wallowa Valley, its people and their joint future.” (The rural area is faced with the Endangered Species Act, Watershed Restrictions, Tribal Claims, The Wildlands Program, and other environmental agendas.) John Lenahan, Ph. D. Managing Editor & Director of Development address & website   Websites A Review of the Law of Easements Continuing education course available, document covers fundamentals of easement law and more. Concepts discussed enable an understanding of many principles of easement law in this country. By Schroeder Law Offices, P.C. Serving Oregon, Washington, Idaho & Nevada since 1991 Oregon State Legislature (Senate and House of Representatives) link

State News “New Wave of UNESCO World Heritage Sites Proposed” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA Position Brief, June 2007) This spring, the National Park Service announced that 36 locations in the United States have been proposed for UNESCO World Heritage Sites, adding to the twenty that already are designated in this country. Such international recognition potentially threatens private property rights because preservationists could exploit the designation to stop the use of land in the region just beyond a site’s borders. More on this topic: Biosphere Reserves & World Heritage Sites “A History of Government Theft” - By Sarah Foster, April 2006, Reprinted from Whistleblower by permission of WorldNetDaily.com, publisher. The U. S. Supreme Court’s Kelo v. New London ruling was not the beginning of the abuse of eminent domain to destroy communities for private development. It began in Washington, D.C., during the 1950s, where slum clearance was the excuse for cruelly displacing 20,000 residents, mainly families from good homes, others people in scattered poor conditions, who suffered especially, and even died, from the evictions. More on this topic: Eminent Domain - National “Regulatory Taking Compensation—The Successful Oregon Measure 37 Referendum” - By Bill Moshofsky, President, Oregonians in Action, Tigard, Oregon; Speech to the Ninth Annual Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N. Y. October 22, 2005) The Oregon Measure 37 referendum created a solution to the “regulatory overkill” that besets Oregon’s property owners, under arguably the strictest land use planning regulations in the country, excessive wetlands, endangered species and forest practice regulation. Oregonians in Action is still fighting against government’s attempt to nullify the law. More on this topic: Regulatory Takings—National “Oregon Voters Approve Measure to Pay for Regulatory Takings” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, November 2004) In a victory for private property rights, “takings” compensation received 60% of the vote in an Oregon referendum. The law, passed in a traditionally liberal state, could start a national movement. More on this topic: Private Property Rights—National “The Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River Estuary Fiasco” — By Jim Starr, Contributing Writer (PRFA, March 2003) Dredging, tern, and salmon smolt pose conflict. The Corps of Engineers’ dredging has created islands from which tern prey on juvenile salmon, but the Corps’ doomed approach to reducing predation is heavy-handed and based on fallacy. More on this topic: Government Land Ownership and Control Or: Endangered Species — National “Conservation Easements-One Rancher to Another”-By Joe Mehrten, Mehrten’s Ranch, Clements, California. An exchange of letters bringing out the many interrelated issues, especially conservation easements, infringing on the future of the rural West. (Click to select from three full letters.) Letter by Joe Mehrten (Jan. 6, 2002) points out, “Conservation easements with private land trusts are so intertwined with government regulations and controls as to be little different from easements sold to public agencies.” Response from Bev Sparrowk, Sparrowk Livestock (Jan. 8, 2002) states, “Jack and I have discovered in our exposure to and dealings with government agencies conversation and a spirit of cooperation usually reaps the results we had hoped for.” Joe Mehrten’s reply (Jan. 29, 2002), after he learned that a government grant, rather than conservation easements, is involved: “[T]he grant application makes it abundantly clear that this project invites destruction of our property rights.” More on this topic: Conservation Easements “Klamath Basin farmers fall victim to the Endangered Species Act”-Reprinted by permission from Wyoming Agriculture, June 2001, published by the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation. Using the Endangered Species Act this year, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau have turned off the water to protect the shortnose and Lost River suckers, although they are neither endangered nor harmed by the farmers’ water use. More on this topic: Government Land Ownership and Control — Nat’l “U. S. Supreme Court Sides With Privacy Rights—Thermal Imaging from Outside House is ruled an ‘Unreasonable Search’” - Carol W. LaGrasse, June 16, 2001 The United States Supreme Court handed Americans a victory for the Fourth Amendment on June 11 by ruling that it is unconstitutional for police to use thermal imaging from outside a house without a search warrant, but the legality of warrantless aerial surveillance was confirmed. More on this topic: Privacy — National “Beyond Zoning—Land Use in the Twenty-first Century” - John A. Charles, Cascade Policy Center, Portland, Ore., from Proceedings of the Fourth Annual N.Y. Conf. on Private property Rights (1999) More on this topic: Smart Growth “Hydroelectric Dams Subject to FERC Relicensing—1998-2010” - from Positions on Property, Vol. 4, No. 1 (PRFA, Nov. 1998) (Jump to Oregon information) More on this topic: National Dam Relicensing under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) “Existing and Tentative U. N. World Heritage Sites in the United States”-reprinted from Positions on Property, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Nov. 1998) (Jump to Oregon information) More on this topic: Biosphere Reserves & World Heritage Sites

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