STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Numerous Congressional acts and executive orders, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and Executive Order 11900 - Protection of Wetlands, give federal and state agencies the power to control the use and productivity of private property, private property rights and economic-backed expectations on private, state and federal lands. Additionally, the misinterpretation of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Multiple Use, Sustained Yield Act can also diminish or eliminate the productive uses of the federally managed, multiple use lands. The misapplication of these laws can elevate wildlife protection, roadless recreation and other “preservation-type” land uses over and above individual rights, multiple land use, rural community protection, commodity use, employment opportunities, economic development and the stability of western rural counties.
Private property in this context includes private lands, private improvements on state or federal lands, private rights on federal lands such as livestock grazing rights and mining rights conveyed under the 1872 Mining Law, development and use rights on federal lands such as the right to harvest timber, and the right to free and unencumbered access to state, federal and private land holdings. Additionally, private property can include protection for investment-backed expectation under Executive Order 12630.
The objectives of the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties for Stable Economic Growth (Coalition of Counties) are: (1) To address the above described erosion of private property ownership and rights; and (2) to reduce the loss of multiple use lands to single use management. Through these objectives, the members of the Coalition of Counties can protect their citizens and their economic base.
The Coalition of Counties supports the protection of truly endangered species, navigable waters, wetlands and other important values on both multiple use and private lands. Congress and the President have determined that it is in the “public interest” to protect and enhance these values. However, Congress, the President, the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as the framers of the U.S. Constitution have also deemed that private property ownership and rights should not be diminished or destroyed in order to protect the resources in the “public interest.” In fact, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution mandates that, if private property rights are diminished “in the public interest,” the holders of those rights must receive just compensation for their losses. It is through the protection of these individual rights on both private property and federal lands that the members of the Coalition of Counties can protect their individual rural economic base.
The objective of stabilizing local economies can be achieved in two ways. First, the Coalition of Counties must understand the economic impacts that the loss of property rights and job security will have on each individual county. To come to such an understanding, counties within the Coalition should conduct individual and joint economic assessments or studies to determine the strength and vitality of each industry contributing to the local economy within that county. These economic assessments should include consideration of the way that federal and state regulations can affect those individual industries, local tax revenues, job security, property values, etc. These economic assessments should also describe the effects that the devaluation of private property will have on the local economic base.
Second, the Coalition of Counties must ascertain how to protect their economic base by: (1) Protecting the private property use and rights of the citizens in their counties; and (2) protecting the multiple use lands from single use advocates. This protection can be enhanced through enforcement of (a) the Fifth Amendment guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without the payment of just compensation, (b) the U.S. Supreme Court interpretation regarding the protection of private property rights from temporary or unreasonable governmental intervention, and (c) Executive Order 12630 which protects property rights from federal agency rules and regulations.
Note that throughout this process, the Coalition of Counties will make every attempt to work with the federal and state agencies and to inform them of the effect that their regulations are having on the Coalition and its individual members. Such cooperation can only bring about a greater understanding of the needs of the Coalition of Counties in protecting their citizens and their economic base.