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Unfortunately, past history teaches that the Justice Department will fight every wetlands 

 taking case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary to prevent paying 

 compensation to landowners. The average cost of the legal expenses associated with a 

 land owner protecting his or her rights under the 5th amendment is upwards of $200,000. 

 That is more money than most small landowners have total, let alone to spend on high 

 priced lawyers to stop the government from abusing them. The effect of this high 

 transaction cost is that small landowners have no effective way to keep the government 

 from making their private land into a defacto wildlife refuge. 



The Federal agencies know how much it costs to pursue a takings case in court and 

 frequently use the threat of those costs to blackmail small landowners into not pursing 

 their projects by threatening to tie them up in court for years. 



I think that great Democrats like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson would be rolling 

 over in their graves if they knew what happens in some of these cases. 



Some might say that paying for what we take will be expensive and we can't afford it. 

 That's a little like the government saying to a store owner I can't afford to buy the shirt I 

 want it so I am going to steal it and its going to cost you more than the property is worth 

 to get it back. This is not American! 



What's wrong with the Clinton plan on Takings. 



The Administration plan leaves the current abusive system in place totally unchecked. 

 The Administration's plan does absolutely nothing to correct the most objectionable 

 aspect of the current system. 



Classification 



The current system treats all wetlands the same and provides no incentive for the private 

 sector to restore and create true wetlands. 



The current system treats a mud puddle in the middle of a farmers field the same as it 

 does the Florida Everglades. This just doesn't make regulatory sense and is very 

 burdensome on the owners of private property. 



The current sequencing system is designed just to say no to all development on what ever 

 the agencies want to call a wetland. There is no incentive for the private sector to 

 restore or create wetlands. This needs to be corrected. 



