Since 1996, U.S. presidents have deployed the 1906 Antiquities Act to create 27 national monuments, including the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Bear Ears, both in Utah, and the 1.6 million-acre Mojave Trails National Monument in California, created in early 2016. President Donald Trump calls this a “massive federal land grab” that unilaterally puts…
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August is National Water Quality Month and that might prompt a meditation on agencies such as California’s State Water Resources Control Board. The Board’s five full-time members are appointed by the governor and “the mission of the Water Board is to ensure the highest reasonable quality for waters of the state, while allocating those…
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions seeks a “new directive on asset forfeiture” and plans new policies to “increase forfeitures.” The target is supposedly big-time criminal organizations but all citizens have good cause to be wary. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas notes, the issue is “whether modern civil-forfeiture statutes can be squared with…
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California’s Coastal Commission has shut down the last beach-sand mine in the United States, operated by the Mexico-based Cemex company. Coastal Commission boss Jack Ainsworth told reporters, “This settlement is an incredible victory for the public.” Taxpayers might not think so. The Commission blamed Cemex for erosion along Monterey Bay. Company official Walker Robinson…
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In 2012, John Duarte was plowing his wheat field in Tehama County, California, when a government inspector accused him of “deep ripping” the land and violating the Clean Water Act, which declares seasonal “vernal pools” to be “wetlands.” So according to the government, Duarte needed a permit to farm his land, but the farmer,…
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Politicians pitched it as a magic carpet that would speed riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco in record time, with complete safety and total comfort. According to promoters California’s high-speed rail project, also known as the bullet train, would also clear up the state’s crowded highways and of course protect the environment and…
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As we noted, in Blazing Saddles the devious Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) plots to build a railroad and has his eye on the land he needs. “Unfortunately,” he laments, “there is one thing standing between me and that property – the rightful owners.” As Ralph Vartebarian notes in the Los Angeles Times, California’s bullet…
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The O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom has just released the new, updated Economic Freedom of the World Index. Over the years, this study has consistently found that the nations that score higher on the index tend to be richer and grow faster, and their citizens face less poverty, live longer, get more…
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