U.S. House approves `takings act’> Proposal costs could cut environmental enforcement

In 1987 two bureaucrats in the Army Corps of Engineers exchanged memos joking about how they were going to “squash” an elderly Scarborough couple for violating a federal environmental law that wasn’t even on the books at the time of the alleged crime.

Three heart attacks, a bout with cancer and nearly a decade later, Gaston Roberge is having the last laugh. The Army Corps’ wrongful prosecution, which voided a $440,000 offer for Roberge’s property, eventually resulted in a $338,000 court settlement.

But that’s just part of the story. On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted for legislation that would make it difficult for federal regulators to treat other landowners the way the Army Corps treated Roberge.

By a 277-148 vote, over the objections of environmental groups and the Clinton administration, the House passed the Private Property Protection Act, or so-called “takings act,” which would require federal agencies to compensate landowners when the value of their property falls by 20 percent or more as the result of environmental rules or other regulations that limit the use of their land.

The “takings act” is part of the Republican “Contract with America.” Reps. James Longley and John Baldacci voted for the bill, although Baldacci backed away from a broader GOP-written measure that included the “takings” measure with several other broader regulatory changes. One of those bills, an aide said, would reduce the funding for environmental cleanup operations at closed military bases like Loring Air Force Base in Limestone.

Bob Voight of Lubec, who founded the Maine Conservation Rights Institute, said Friday’s House action will help swing the political pendulum back in favor of individual property rights. Voight said that the Roberge case is just one of a host of “horror stories” regarding Maine landowners that his group has helped publicize. He said that landowner rights supporters are pressing the Maine Legislature to enact a similar provision. Gov. Angus King has voiced sympathy for the group’s objectives, according to Voight.

Opponents said the “takings” bill would spark thousands of claims against the government and bring environmental enforcement to a halt. A Clinton administration official insisted the measure could shatter agency budgets and would, in effect, pay people to comply with environmental laws.

“It may require us to close parks, wildlife refuges or other lands,” Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wrote House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., on the eve of the House debate. Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner said the bill would “allow polluters to be paid for not polluting” and give those who have avoided environmental improvements an advantage over those who have complied.

“The proposal is a thinly veiled attempt to repeal wetlands legislation and to gut the Endangered Species Act through the back door without ever having a real out-in-the-open debate about either,” Babbitt said. He claimed the law could be used by mining, timber and oil companies to seek hundreds of millions of dollars from an already cash-strapped department.

“There are lots of people who stand to gain with this bill. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake,” said Karl Gawell of the Wilderness Society. State and local government groups argued the bill will spawn an avalanche of compensation claims and drain government coffers.

Voight said most of those concerns were wild exaggerations with little basis in fact.

There have been some interesting crosscurrents during the debate. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has voiced opposition to the Republican contract and the “takings” concept. A New York newspaper, though, last week revealed that the Kennedy family has filed a lawsuit attempting to block the Palm Beach Landmarks Preservation Committee from designating its vacation estate in that city as a historical site.

Kennedy lawyers are arguing that the restrictions imposed on the building as a result of a historical designation would significantly lower the family’s $7 million asking price for the estate, which was offered for sale 15 months ago. The estate gained public notoriety during the William Kennedy Smith rape trial.

Roberge said he pursued his case against the Army Corps “for only one reason, to alert other people that people have a right to be compensated by the government if they are abused.”

A court investigation into the decision to prosecute the Scarborough man and his wife painted an unflattering portrait of the mind-set of some environmental regulators. Roberge had authorized a local contractor working for the town to deposit several loads of surplus gravel from a sewer line extension project onto a lot he owned at Pine Point near Old Orchard Beach. The incident took place in 1975, nearly a decade before enactment of the federal wetlands protection act.

In one memo disclosed to the court, an Army Corps of Engineers environmental regulator wrote to his subordinates that the Maine couple “was trying to sneak this one past you guys.”

“Roberge would be a good one to squash and set an example,” the memo indicated. The author signed the document, “formerly the Maytag Repair Man.”

The Army Corps insisted the memo was written “in a moment of levity,” but later conceded that the case was one of the most unfair, wrongful prosecutions of a landowner in recent memory.

Reacting to Friday’s House vote, Roberge said, “This is a big victory. Environmentalists have had their way for the last 20 years.”

The “takings” bill now goes to the Senate, where opposition is expected to be much stronger.