We publicly recognize Rep s. Klug, Kind, Barrett, Kleczka and Johnson for their vote against the bill earlier this fall. Takings is foolish public policy. It puts America s health at risk by rolling back 25 years of bipartisan environmental progress. It shifts the financial, legal and moral burden of dealing with pollution from polluters to victims. It gives too much power to big developers and large scale extractive industries such as mining and agribusiness.
Takings is an end run on land use conflicts.
We think this is a bad idea and takes power away from local officials and residents. Planning for our growth depends on strong zoning laws that encourage development in certain areas while limiting development in others. Zoning laws and planned growth is good neighbor policy and to most of us in Wisconsin, makes common sense. For example, local zoning laws may prevent a large hog farm from expanding a barnyard near a trout stream or deny a proposal for a 24 hr. car wash or a porn shop from being built in a residential neighborhood. But big developers and big mining companies aren t happy when such projects are denied.