When I wrote the column “The Battle for Antietam Lake” I only had one problem. I was not sure where the $ 2.8 million dollars the Berks County Commissioners were offering was coming from. I searched the Internet, Lexis Nexis, and the Reading Eagle/Times online. Regrettably, I did not find out and then spoke out of place in my column. I wrote that $2.8 million dollars is in essence being stolen from the tax payers of Berks County. The $2.8 million dollars is not coming from the taxpayers of Berks County. It is coming from taxes levied on landfill companies that bring garbage into Pennsylvania from other states. The tax money generated this way is used for preservation efforts. Seen in this light, is it wrong for the government, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to tax out of state companies to dispose of trash in the Commonwealth and use the money to preserve land?
The answer to this question is it’s not wrong. I looked over the Commonwealth’s constitution and Pennsylvania does have the right to tax trash companies for the preservation of land. Article one section twenty-seven states that, “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” Section six of article eight states, “The power to tax corporations and corporate property shall not be surrendered or suspended by any contract or grant to which the Commonwealth shall be a party.” The Commonwealth seems to have a constitutional duty to conserve and preserve land and has the right to tax corporations because it cannot legally surrender that power.
As a Libertarian I believe that the government is obligated to protect life, liberty, and property. I believe that the United States government and the state governments were formed with this intent. To ensure that this happens the United States government and the state governments wrote up contracts that limited the powers of the government. As a Libertarian I believe that these contracts or constitutions should be interpreted by a literal reading of them. In the case of Antietam Lake, the government actually seems to be fulfilling a constitutional duty. In the end I need to apologize. Antietam Lake 2001 and similar groups are not stealing from the taxpayers of Berks County. The government in this case is not on a slippery slope. They do have a constitutional duty to preserve land. I still feel that it would be better for a private group to buy and preserve the land. I still worry about what will happen to the land in the future as the government changes along with priorities. I believe that the best way to preserve land and the environment as a whole is through Free Market Environmentalism. I would like to thank Professor Watcke for setting me straight on the funding issue. In the future I will try and ensure that I do not assume anything. This illustrates the old saying about what happens when you assume …
Andrew Harris President College Libertarians of Albright [email protected] http://campuslp.org/ac To learn more or see the sources for this article please visit the web page.