Exposed: Pennsylvania Act 13 Overturned by Supreme Court, Originally an ALEC Model Bill

[kpete]

Published on Friday, July 27, 2012 by DeSmog Blog
Exposed: Pennsylvania Act 13 Overturned by Supreme Court, Originally an ALEC Model Bill
by Steve Horn
A close examination suggests that an ALEC model bill is quite similar to the recently overturned Act 13.

It is likely modeled after and inspired by an ALEC bill titled, "An Act Granting the Authority of Rural Counties to Transition to Decentralized Land Use Regulation." This Act was passed by ALEC's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force at its Annual Meeting in August 2010 in San Diego, CA.

The model bill opens by saying that "…the planning and zoning authority granted to rural counties may encourage land use regulation which is overly centralized, intrusive and politicized." The model bill's central purpose is to "grant rural counties the legal authority to abandon their planning and zoning authority in order to transition to decentralized land use regulation…"

The key legal substance of the bill reads, "The local law shall require the county to repeal or modify any land use restriction stemming from the county’s exercise of its planning or zoning authority, which prohibits or conditionally restricts the peaceful or highest and best uses of private property…"

In short, like Act 13, this ALEC model bill turns local democractic protections on their head. Act 13, to be fair, is a far meatier bill, running 174 pages in length. What likely happened: Pennsylvania legislators and the oil and gas industry lobbyists they serve took the key concepts found in ALEC's bill, ran with them, and made an even more extreme and specific piece of legislation to strip away Pennsylvania citizens' rights.

way, way more:
http://www.desmogblog.com/exposed-pennsylvania-act-13-overturned-supreme-court-originally-alec-model-bill