OPINION/COMMENTARY

How Far is Far Enough to Satisfy Enviros?

How far must we reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert catastrophic global warming? Proponents of the (much watered down) Lieberman-McCain bill (S. 139), requiring greenhouse gas reductions to 2000 levels in 2010, called their proposal "a modest first step," implying more action is needed. Which is why S. 139 supporters vowed that, at some undetermined point in the future (2004? 2005?), they will push for the original bill's Phase II reductions to 1990 levels in 2016.

But is this enough? According to global warming alarmists, the answer is clearly "no."

So is Kyoto, which requires the U.S. to reduce emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, and calls for a 2 percent reduction in global emissions, sufficient to solve the problem? No again...


The National Aviation Heritage Act: No Way to Celebrate the Wright Brothers

DATE: November 18, 2003

BACKGROUND: The U. S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Nov. 18 on the "National Aviation Heritage Act," H.R. 280. Sponsored by Rep. David Hobson (R-OH), the bill would create a National Aviation Heritage Area encompassing several counties in Ohio and Indiana to commemorate the nation's aviation history. Inspired by the rapidly approaching one-hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (which took place on December 17, 1903), the bill would also create an Aviation Heritage Foundation to manage the Heritage Area. The cost to the taxpayers is set at $10 million.

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: The creation of a new National Heritage Area will lead to more federal zoning and land-use restrictions.

THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE: Experience shows that the rights of residential and commercial property owners are often undermined in National Heritage Areas. In the name of preserving the historic "landscape" of the area in question, federal officials often develop management plans that are little more than zoning imposed by Washington bureaucrats.

DISCUSSION: There are 23 National Heritage Areas in the United States, most of them located east of the Mississippi River. Under the guise of promoting environmental protection, preserving open space, and fostering historic preservation, the National Park Service, which oversees the program, and an assortment of interest groups have used the law to infringe upon the property rights of those living within the boundaries of Heritage Areas.

As J. Peyton Knight of the American Policy Center told the House Resources Committee's Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands earlier this year, "If the Heritage Areas program is allowed to proliferate, experience shows that it will become not only a funding albatross, as more and more interest groups gather around the federal trough, but also a program that quashes property rights and local economies through restrictive federal zoning practices. The real beneficiaries of a National Heritage Area program are conservation groups, preservation societies, land trusts, and the National Park Service -- essentially, organizations that are in constant pursuit of federal dollars, land acquisition, and restrictions to development."

Furthermore, the National Park Service is already facing a multi-billion maintenance backlog. Under the best of circumstances, it will take the Park Service years to repair the crumbling infrastructure of the national parks and other areas under its jurisdiction. Adding another Heritage Area to a system that is already overburdened is simply irresponsible.

As the National Park Service itself noted in testimony before Congress earlier this year, "some national heritage areas have been designated without a clear indication of the ability of the management entity to assume responsibility for management of the area. The management entity subsequently has operated the area without a clear financial plan for achieving self-sufficiency without federal support. Consequently, it is time to step back, evaluate existing areas, and develop legislative guidelines that will shape future national heritage area designations."

Americans should be proud of the Wright Brothers' splendid historical achievement of 100 years ago. Creating a new National Heritage Area is no way to celebrate man's first flight...

The International Green Agenda

Environmental groups were stunned when the cash-strapped Turner Foundation—which gave about $28 million to green causes in 2002—announced recently that it would temporarily suspend all funding for at least a year. The prospect of losing a major donor was a setback for radical activist groups like the Ruckus Society, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace. (The Turner Foundation, however, will fulfill multi-year grant commitments totaling $6 million for 2003 and $6 million for 2004; and Turner’s United Nations Foundation plans to fulfill his pledge of donating $1 billion to U.N. programs. To date, the United Nations Foundation has donated at least $400 million.) They and other so-called “nongovernmental organizations”—or NGOs—are ubiquitous at gatherings of the U.N., the World Trade Organization and other international organizations. These activist and advocacy groups are use to financial backing from a network of foundation donors. It’s what keeps their large and diffuse network in constant motion around the world.

The July 2003 issue of Foundation Watch outlined the NGO phenomenon on the world stage. Authors David Riggs and Robert Huberty recommended that international organizations adopt transparency rules similar to those governing U.S. nonprofits. They would require NGOs to make public reports on the amount and sources of their revenue—including government funding—and their expenses before receiving U.N. “consultative” status or other forms of official recognition. Riggs and Huberty noted that as things stand now, international NGOs face little or no public scrutiny despite their officially sanctioned presence at major inter-governmental meetings...