BOEHLERT URGES “NO” VOTE ON H.R. 4772

WASHINGTON, September 29, 2006 – House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) today delivered the following floor statement during debate on H.R. 4772, Private Property Rights Implementation Act of 2006:

Mr. Chairman:

            I rise in strong opposition to this bill.  This bill is a bad idea that comes before us periodically, but happily has never been enacted.  And I hope it meets a similar fate this time.

            This bill is quite simply an effort to take away the rights of each and every property owner who wants to alter or even block an unwanted development.  It should really be called “the Private Property Rights Obliteration Act.”

            If you’re a homeowner, and you’d like a new mall or a new apartment building to be a little smaller so it doesn’t overwhelm your neighborhood with traffic, this bill will make it next to impossible for you to succeed.  If you’re a homeowner and you don’t want a bar to be built right around the corner from your house, this bill will make it almost impossible for you to succeed.  If you’re a small businessman and you want to control where a big box store is going to be built, this bill will make it almost impossible for you to succeed.

            In 2000, the last time we debated this, the developers quite rightly described this bill as a “hammer to the heads” of local officials who are trying to guide and manage development.  It is a very dangerous bill.

            It’s also a very odd bill.  Here we have supposed conservatives begging federal courts to intervene in the most local matters.  Why?  So that the developers can scare localities into not doing their most fundamental jobs.

            Now this time around the proponents of this bill have come up with some new ingenious arguments for the bill.  The only problem is that these arguments are wildly inaccurate.  So let me make clear to my colleagues:  this bill does not deal at all with “eminent domain” or “property seizures” or the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, which was decided years after this bill was written. 

            This bill is only about localities exercising their zoning authority.  It’s not about localities taking property by eminent domain. 

            And by the way, the substantive problem in Kelo was that a developer was kicking people out of their homes.  This bill would only strengthen the hand of developers to an unprecedented degree.

            So let’s not undermine our nation’s neighborhoods and localities with this unprecedented and radical change in law.  Let’s listen to all the local government and environmental groups that have always opposed this bill.  Let’s make sure our constituents retain the ability to shape their own neighborhoods.  Vote no.

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109-339