Private property rights are intrinsic to our Constitution, our economy and culture. Two cases before the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) and one new corporate stunt threaten those rights.
A California case involves local governments leveraging building permits to extort fees from property owners for political purposes unrelated to the property’s use. A property owner applied for a building permit for a small home near Lake Tahoe. The county conditioned the permit on a $23,420 “traffic mitigation fee” for costs of expanding public roads to reduce congestion. The owner sued in lower courts, claiming excessive fees.
SCOTUS’ previous rulings held that permit conditions must have an “essential nexus” and be “roughly proportional” to a development’s adverse impact. Their precedents held, requiring property owners to make part of their land available for public use violated the Fifth Amendment, barring government from taking property without just compensation, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Some state courts have argued that the SCOTUS precedents don’t apply to fees when local governments are doing the extorting, yet escalating fees are being used in lieu of unpopular property tax increases to fund governments.
The Journal story points out “Politicians increasingly trample property rights to promote what they deem to be the public good,” like affordable housing, public art, daycare centers and ride-share programs.
Then environmental zealots have hatched a new ploy. Monster asset manager BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink is a leading proponent of the latest environmental, social and corporate governance movement. Navigator CO2 Ventures—84% BlackRock-owned, according to American Stewards of Liberty—and Summit Carbon Solutions are private companies that have “declared” themselves “common carriers.” Common carriers are usually regulated railroads, water companies and pipelines. They are allowed as private companies to take privately owned land by eminent domain.
Navigator’s “Heartland Greenway” plans to pipe CO2 emissions from ethanol plants to locations where it could be sequestered deeply underground. Summit would connect to over 30 ethanol plants in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, and Minnesota.
Our country needs pipelines but legally: “A ‘common carrier’ is a carrier owning or operating a railroad, steamship, or other transportation line or route which transports goods or merchandise for any general public,” according to the Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.
While Navigator has paused their project, facing local resistance, South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems (R-16) said over 150 South Dakota landowners have been served papers by Summit, condemning portions of their land and allowing Summit access, The Epoch Times said.
“My biggest concern is that we are setting a precedent,” Lems said. “This is eminent domain for private gain. If the pipeline succeeds, “solar and wind are right behind them.”
“Climate emergency” again.
To achieve “net zero” by 2050, solar and wind arrays will need huge swaths of land. But 70% of U.S. land is privately owned. Many owners are opposed. Many communities have blocked projects. So, Michigan passed a law taking control of renewable projects away from local communities, transferring to a state agency instead.
Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, has advised publicly that for clean energy, “We may even need to (invoke) eminent domain.”
It may take legislation to stop private companies from declaring themselves common carriers with eminent domain powers.
The U.S. solicitor general argued a case before SCOTUS recently (Moore v. United States). The justices reportedly focused on whether the 16th Amendment’s authorization of “income” taxes gives it the power to tax “unrealized” income. We regard it as “paper profit.” The law has historically characterized income as funds the taxpayer has control over or “constructive realization.”
If you haven’t gotten it, you can’t pay bills with it.
If SCOTUS rules for the government, it could mean that any appreciation in the value of your house, your stocks or your land could be subject to the tax collector every year, whether you sold anything and received money or not. Like the feudal king’s tax collector deciding how much tribute you owe.
Notice the words “income.” As in receipt, not a fanciful contrived government calculation assigning taxable responsibility. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the “ordinary conception of income” means any “economic gain between two points in time.”
Preposterous. It does not mean money you might think you’re going to gain but may not; economic reality, not theoretical.
The Founding Fathers never intended to finance government on imaginary monies. Can you imagine telling the IRS that you paid your tax bill with imaginary gains and they should imagine you paid your taxes with it? — Steve Dittmer, WLJ columnist
(Steve Dittmer is the author of the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation newsletter. Views in the column do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of WLJ or its editorial staff.)
