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WARRENTON--Just one year
Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) wants to transform the entire U.S. 15 corridor, from Charlottesville to Gettysburg, into a National Heritage Area.
National Heritage Areas are preservation zones, where the National Park Service and designated preservationist groups team up to influence how an area is developed (or not developed).
Wolf's bill, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act, is a pork-barrel earmark awarded to preservationist interest groups. Only instead of merely providing pork, this would actually purchase lobbyists.
The legislation essentially deputizes the National Trust for Historic Preservation, other like-minded preservationist groups and the Park Service to oversee land-use policy in the corridor. This consortium would form a "management entity" and be given a federal mandate to create an "inventory" of all property in the area that it wants "preserved," "managed," or "acquired" because of its "national historic significance."
In an effort to downplay concerns from property-rights advocates, a spokesperson for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership (the umbrella group that is spearheading the Heritage Area effort), claims, "A National Heritage Area does not interfere with the local authority at all."
Such a statement signifies either extreme ignorance of the legislation, or outright dishonesty. Wolf's legislation is specifically designed to interfere with local authorities.
The "management entity" would have the authority to disburse federal moneys to "states and their political subdivisions" to promote land-use policies (including land acquisition) that are favored by the entity in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
However, taxpayers would not vote on the entity's leadership--or have a say in its direction. In addition, eligibility for membership on the board of the "management entity" would be limited to members of the partnership prior to the legislation's enactment.
The special interests couldn't ask for much more: a congressionally ordained, members-only club, funded by taxpayers, for the purpose of making taxpayers live under the club's rules.
One of the chief beneficiaries would be the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has an anti-property-rights agenda.
In a much-publicized case last year, a Louisa man who wanted to renovate his home ran into stiff opposition from NTHP. Emily Wadhams, the National Trust's vice president for public policy, argued against the rights of the homeowner in a hearing on Capitol Hill, testifying, "[P]rivate property rights have never been allowed to take precedence over our shared national values and the preservation of our country's heritage."
There is little doubt that those who make this ground "hallowed" would take umbrage at Wadhams' brash attempt at revisionist history. Thomas Jefferson once said, "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management."
Property rights are merely inconvenient barriers to the National Trust's rigid management agenda.
The National Trust has worked to defeat state ballot initiatives designed to restore the property rights. For instance, citizens in both Oregon and Washington have had to contend with the National Trust political machine in their battle to receive fair compensation when government devalues their land.
The group also vehemently opposes commonsense road improvements. NTHP lobbied to kill plans for a much-needed "outer connector" that would have brought traffic relief to the heavily congested area near Chancellorsville Battlefield in Spotsylvania County. Why? According to the National Trust, the connector "would pass within a mile of the park boundary." How a road one mile away from the battlefield would harm it is not clear.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground debate is about more than how land should be managed. It is a question of who should be doing the managing: local officials and the citizens to whom they are directly accountable, or unaccountable special interest groups and equally unaccountable federal bureaucrats?
We should never seek to honor the heroes of our nation by trampling the sacred principles for which they fought and died--namely, constitutional rights and limited, local government.
PEYTON KNIGHT is director
