According to a report from The White House website, the 30x30 initiative is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s America the Beautiful plan and aims to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Constitutional analyst Roger Pilon, the Cato Institute's vice president for legal affairs, said legal challenges, opposition in conservative states, battles in Congress and fiscal realities will doom the 30x30 proposal.
“There are several issues. The first of all is, from a constitutional perspective, what is the authority for this? The administration is talking about doing this through executive order,” Pilon told Federal Newswire. “The Supreme Court is really going after this, the expansion of the government since the New Deal, and the creation of the modern executive state, where most of the law is written today in our 400 and more executive branch agencies that exist in Washington.
"We’re talking about Department of Interior, Department of Agriculture and Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, all of these,” he added.
He said any of Biden's moves are sure to be met with sturdy opposition.
“If the administration plans to do this by executive order, it will be challenged immediately and will not likely survive in this Congress." Pilon said. "We’ve already seen several cases in which the court has rolled back. There’s just recently an EPA case. There’s the first impediment,” Pilon said.
“If it’s doing it by appealing to Congress, then you have the issue of whether the Congress has the authority to do this,” he added. “And when you look at the Constitution, there is no authority for government to be involved in this area. Now we’re talking about acquiring new property here, by the legislation of the state in which the same shall be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. There’s nothing in there about wildlife habitat, national parks and so forth.”
Pilon is also the founding director of Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in constitutional studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at the departments of State and Justice and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
His writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and Stanford Law and Policy Review. He has appeared on ABC’s “Nightline,” CBS’s “60 Minutes II,” Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and C-SPAN.
According to its website’s about page, the Cato Institute is a globally recognized think tank, dedicated to the principles of individual freedom, minimal governance, free market economics, and peace. Renowned for its 40-plus years of impact, the institute translates complex policy research into accessible ideas, collaborates across political divides, and tirelessly advocates for a more prosperous, free society.
Pilon notes that about one-third of land in the United States is owned by the federal, state and local governments. The 30x30 plan would increase government ownership of land by 440 million acres, the equivalent of two states of Texas.
“I think the administration is claiming that we lose a football field every 30 seconds,” Pilon said. “Even if that were true, at that rate, it would take over eight centuries to lose all of the lower 48 states. So that’s wildly exaggerated.”
He said courts are aware they are taking on decades of policy and practice. That is why they will go about it “very gingerly,” Pilon said.
In order to seize privately owned land, Pilon asserts, legislation must be passed.
“And the reason is just because you cannot take land for public use without paying just compensation," he said. "That’s Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause—nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation,” Pilon said.
“Whenever Congress takes public property, it’s got to get the state’s authority. If it takes private property, it’s got to pay compensation,” he said. “Now we come to the battle that concluded [last week], namely the debt extension authority. And the issue is going to be increasingly coming to the fore. What are we spending public money on? The debt is already now approaching $32 trillion. Do we want to spend more money on this plan? Because you’re going to be up against every other claim, from defense to education to you name it for a seat at the public trough.”
Pilon said if Biden tries to acquire this much land, he will come up short both in votes and dollars. He said limiting a landowner’s ability to use his property also is problematic.
“You’re going to have to pay compensation to private parties if you condemn their land through eminent domain and take the property into the public domain, then, too, there is compensation that is required for regulations,” Pilon said.
