Property Rights

On Monday, October 3, Pacific Legal Foundation senior attorney Damien Schiff will argue Sackett v. EPA at the Supreme Court. At issue is the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act. More than 350 organizations, states, and members of Congress have filed amicus briefs in support o ...

Taking on the United States government in court is not for the faint of heart—it takes courage, grit, and a deep belief in the cause for which you are fighting. When the government violated the terms of an agreement it made with property owners in Montana, one man refused to take the abuse lying down. … ...

The first time Mark Mucciaccio of South Easton, Mass., remembers hearing of Tallage Lincoln LLC was when he learned the real estate investment company had taken his longtime family home out from under him. … ...

Every great hero comes to a point in their journey where they find themselves down for the count—wounded, downtrodden, and doubting their ability to defeat their formidable foe.    When Pacific Legal Foundation’s communications team first met our hero, 67-year-old Deborah Foss, she was homeless in New Bedford, Massachusetts.   Deborah w ...

Achieving the “California Dream for all” will take something much bigger than a new government program, yet much simpler: freedom to build. … ...

Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a parcel of land in 2004 near Priest Lake, Idaho, with dreams of building their family home on the site. Construction began in 2007—but stopped almost immediately when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in and issued a compliance order, claiming their land is a federally protected wetland and accusi ...

Mike and Chantell Sackett have been fighting the EPA in court for 15 years. Here’s a timeline of their case: 2004: Mike and Chantell Sackett purchase a vacant lot in a residential subdivision near Priest Lake, Idaho. At its north end, the lot is bounded by paved Kalispell Bay Road, on the other side of … ...

The federal government isn’t going to solve the housing crisis. With its multiple large, redundant, contradictory, unwieldy, and economically illiterate Washington-centric bureaucracies, we should neither expect nor want the government to be in the homebuilding business. Or to tell us how to do it.  In fact, the best thing the government can ...

The Revolutionary War is filled with stories of heroes who risked everything to secure a future where an individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness was safeguarded against the threat of tyrants.   Our history books tell of the bravery of patriots like Paul Revere and Sam Adams, but there is a … ...