Cover:

Standing Ground Together
In July of this year, two of the nation’s preeminent property rights organizations merged to become “American Stewards of Liberty.” The new association combines the memberships of Stewards of the Range and American Land Foundation, creating a powerful force for property rights and liberty in America.

Land Use Control Unprecedented in Clean Waters Bill
The Clean Water Restoration Act, passed out of the Senate Environment Committee, may be the most dangerous land use control bill Americans have had to face. Under the banner of maintaining quality water, it reaches far beyond controlling the activities of rural America into the daily lives of urban dwellers. S 787 increases federal regulatory power broader than it has ever been and far beyond where it was ever intended by the drafters of the Constitution.

National Issues:

Colorado Landowners Face Losing All Under Conservation Easements
Over 300 Landowners in Colorado signed Conservation Easements, doing everything by the book, guided by Land Trusts and attorneys alike. Now they face IRS back taxes and penalties and the real threat of losing their land.

America’s Food Under Attack
There are a total of 45 bills and resolutions filed in Congress this session for “Food Safety.” Each comes with specific dangers to the free enterprise system and should be a focus of concern for not only food producers, but Americans in general. This article takes a close look at one of them, HR 875, the Food Safety and Modernization Act, to illustrate the need to closely examine the language of each of the pending bills to learn the dangers and myths.

Smart Growth, a Violation of Basic Rights
While the result of zoning is to regulate, restrict and prohibit land use, thus diminishing the private property rights of owners, Smart Growth is taking zoning to a new level violating the substantive due process rights of the landowner. In this in-depth article on the history of Smart Growth, the author makes a convincing case that the concept itself is unconstitutional.

People and Events:

Call America 2009
Make plans to be in Denver, Colorado this November for the annual property rights convention, Call America 2009 – Coordinating America’s Local Leaders. This will be the fourth year the conference focuses on training local leaders how to use the coordination process to protect the local economy and property rights. The conference takes place November 5-7. Register today at the early registration rate.

Coordination Across America:

Super Highway Standstill
The first leg of the NAFTA Superhighway, Trans-Texas Corridor, is at a welcomed standstill after the transportation department failed to win any new legislative proposals in the 2009 Texas Legislature, including failing to find a way around coordination with the 391 local government Commissions. The Eastern Central Texas Commission has petitioned the Federal Highway Administration to reject the environmental study on the quarter-of-a-mile-wide superhighway corridors.

Special Report: COORDINATION PRIMER
NEPA – The National Environmental Policy Act Protecting the Human Environment
Landowners and local governments across the nation are beginning to recognize what a key role the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can play in protecting productive use, the local economy and the safety and welfare of the citizens, primarily through the coordination process. Every federal agency must comply with this law whenever they take any major federal action giving America’s landowners, who recognize the true intent of the Act, an opportunity to once again find protection.