Wednesday, 24 Apr 2002

We Lake It

In a blow to the property-rights movement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday against Lake Tahoe property owners who had argued that they were entitled to monetary compensation from the government for restrictions placed on use of their land. The origins of the legal battle stretch back two decades, to when the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency placed a three-year moratorium on development in the Lake Tahoe Basin to study possible environmental impacts. Property owners who bought land before the restrictions were enacted but were largely unable to develop it filed suit against the planning agency in 1984. The plaintiffs had been hoping for a blanket decision in favor of property owners, but the court ruled 6-3 that a temporary building moratorium is a necessary tool of government and does not automatically amount to a "takings" of private property. That's good news for environmentalists and planners, who had been suffering from a string of unfavorable Supreme Court rulings.

Hi, I'm Not in Delaware

In the latest blow to its image, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a planned $311 million deepening of the Delaware River after learning that the General Accounting Office was preparing to question the project's economic justification. Sources said GAO investigators believed the Corps had overstated the potential economic benefits of the project to the ports of Philadelphia and Camden. For similar reasons, the agency has been forced to suspend studies of lock expansions on the Mississippi River and a deepening of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal; in addition, the White House Office of Management and Budget has challenged the economics behind a flood-control project in Dallas, and an internal Pentagon investigation has questioned the overall credibility of Corps economic analyses. The Corps has been studying the Delaware River deepening since the 1980s and has already spent more than $40 million on the project. Environmentalists and politicians, who had expressed concern about the 33 million cubic yards of dredge spoil and other ecological harm that could stem from the project, were happy to learn of the suspension.

Corn Huskers Motion

By a vote of 68 to 31, the Senate yesterday killed an attempt to remove a measure in the Democratic energy bill requiring U.S. refiners to triple their use of ethanol by 2012. The measure would increase nationwide use of the corn-based fuel additive from about 1.7 billion gallons this year to 5 billion gallons by 2012. That's good news for corn-growing farmers; many environmentalists also back the measure because ethanol is a greener fuel additive than its most common counterpart, MBTE, which reduces smog but also pollutes groundwater. One clear beneficiary of the measure is agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, which controls 40 percent of ethanol production in the U.S.

Monumental Pains

It might not reach Arctic Refuge-proportions in its intensity, but a battle being joined today by the Bush administration over national monuments promises to be a doozy. It will encompass debates about everything from oil drilling to dirt bike-riding, and will pit Western lawmakers, landowners, and the recreational-vehicle industry -- all of whom generally want as few restrictions as possible on monument lands -- against environmentalists, who hope to protect the areas with strict management plans. Over the objections of many Republicans, former President Clinton created 19 national monuments covering more than 5 million acres of federal land in the West. The Bush administration initially considered scaling back the monuments, but met with public resistance and opted to revise management plans instead. This week, Interior Secretary Gale Norton is formally soliciting input from state and local officials and residents in drafting the plans; environmentalists fear the process will grant too loud a voice to anti-monument property owners, businesses, and developers.

Rodents of Usual Size

It's a grand time to be a San Bernardino kangaroo rat -- or as grand as they come for the endangered nine-inch rodent. Yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 33,295 acres of California's San Bernardino and Riverside counties as critical habitat for the rats, meaning that it will be more difficult to win approval for development projects on the affected lands. The Center for Biological Diversity, which pursued the designation, had hoped for an additional 22,000 protected acres. All nine scientists that reviewed the habitat plan before it was finalized called for more land to be included, but the federal agency begged to differ. The kangaroo rat was once common throughout the two counties, but its numbers have dwindled as its habitat has been reduced and fragmented by development.