ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORS ARE CONFISCATING PRIVATE PROPERTY

This past summer, while America pondered health reform, White House scandal and invasion plans for Haiti, the Supreme Court struck a quiet but important blow for one of our greatest and least appreciated rights: private property. Voting five to four, the justices ruled that a store owner in a Portland, Ore., suburb had to be paid for the portion of her property claimed for improvement of a storm drainage system and construction of a public bicycle path.

Only fair, you say? Ha! How little you know about the workings of modern government.

Across the country, millions of acres of private land lie unused because federal, state or local agencies have ruled that developing, improving or farming those acres would constitute a threat to wildlife, put added stress on endangered species or compromise the quality of wetlands. Even when owners have been willing to redraw their plans for minimum environmental impact, provide alternative wildlife habitat, or turn already-improved property back into wilderness, the nature bureaucrats have blocked proposals -- destroying land values and, in effect, confiscating property without compensation.

Such is the zeal of regulators that people have been charged as "environmental criminals" for altering "protected" land, even when their alterations caused no appreciable harm. A Florida father and son went to prison for dumping sand in a ditch designated a "wetland," as did a Pennsylvania man when he cleaned old tires out of a vacant lot.

These examples are by no means isolated, and they are not even the work of Clintonite environmental extremists. In fact, both occurred during the Reagan-Bush years. And if you think they are the most bizarre instances of hyper-enforcement, think again. In 1992, a conservationist spent six months in a federal penitentiary for disturbing wetlands while in the process of creating a wildlife sanctuary.

As they say, "I am not making this up."

The Supreme Court's decision to compensate the store owner in the Oregon case (called Florence Dolan v. The City of Tigard) is a much-needed step in the direction of restoring a basic constitutional protection. But it by no means heralds an end to government high-handedness in property issues. A ruling is only a ruling, after all, calling for still more rulings. And a favorite tactic of regulators is to tie up property plans in court until the costs of litigation and the burden of carrying unused land force owners to give up on any disputed plans. An important point to understand is that many actions taken against landowners are based entirely on bureaucratic policy -- not on law. In his new book, Lost Rights; The Destruction of American Liberty, author James Bovard notes how the Clinton White House has tried to force legislation to conform to practice, urging Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to make it consistent with established Environmental Protection Agency rule making -- rather than making the EPA follow the law.

"In earlier eras," Bovard writes, "the statement that federal agencies were imposing burdens and restrictions on private landowners that were not justified by federal law would be a confession that the government was violating people's rights. But nowadays, it is simply a technicality requiring a few words from Congress to retroactively sanctify the actions of lawless bureaucrats."

It may be that the real "environmental criminals" are those who seek to destroy the environment of freedom.

George Roche is president of Hillsdale College in Michigan, which receives no federal funding.