Measures should prevent large corporate interests from obtaining individuals' lands and give corporations the right to recover only that land which was taken by government from their corporate entity. Thousands of homes and thousands of acres of private land have been confiscated by the federal government and added to National Parks and National Forests, causing the federal domain to increase and the private sector to shrink. Condemnation takings require that the dispossessed owner receive just compensation under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Even so, government delay and the cost of fighting the government in court mean that many deprived property owners never receive payment. Intrusive regulations have increased greatly in the past twenty years, and have been written without provisions for just compensation of property owners who lose their property rights through regulatory power.
Property rights are rights to use and control physical things.
When the use or control of things is removed from the owner by regulatory power, that owner's property rights have been damaged or destroyed. This principle has been increasingly recognized by U.S. courts and lawmakers, which have begun to treat regulation as a taking under the Fifth Amendment requiring just compensation. The Center is active in this change. Several federal laws and their regulations have been the most destructive of private property rights. The Center seeks better ways to achieve the purpose of these regulations without damaging property rights.