A frightening Leslie Kaufman report indicates that Maine's new governor thinks the state suffers from an excess of natural beauty:
Weeks after he was sworn in as governor of Maine, Paul LePage, a Tea Party favorite, announced a 63-point plan to cut environmental regulations, including opening three million acres of the North Woods for development and suspending a law meant to monitor toxic chemicals that could be found in children's products.
We also learn that Chris Christie thinks "the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, which preserves more than 800,000 acres of open land that supplies drinking water to more than half of New Jersey's residents, is an infringement on property rights." And, indeed, it does sound like that's a bit of an infringement on property rights. With the purpose, it seems, being to preserve drinking water. Is that the only infringement of property rights that exists in the entire state of New Jersey? Or would it be possible to tackle the state's anti-density zoning rules rather than its water protection ones?
Published on April 16, 2011 09:27