The takings agenda specifically undermines environmental legislation, land use laws, and rule and regulations designed to protect public health.  It also largely ignores the fact that effective regulatory measures enhance the value of private property.  

Starting in 1993, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) began pushing “The Private Property Protection Act” which Utah introduced in 1994, and Kansas introduced in 1996. 

The same bill has taken on many other titles.

• In West Virginia, the bill is called the “Private Real Property Protection Act." 
• The “Private Property Rights Protection Act” passed in Florida in 1995.
• The “Property Owner’s Rights Act”, California SB 153, would require a detailed "private property taking impact analysis" prior to undertaking any agency action that "may significantly impair the use of private property."  
• The “Real Property Rights Preservation Act”, became Texas law when Governor George W. Bush signed it in 1995.  The statute defines a taking as a government action which causes “a reduction of at least 25 percent in the market value of the affected private real property.”  
• In Idaho, the Cattlemen’s Association has proposed a constitutional amendment to extend the concept of takings and compensation to include “appurtenances” to real property such as their cattle.  In 1994, Idaho passed the “Regulatory Takings Act”.  In Wyoming, the bill is also titled the “Regulatory Takings Act." 
• The “Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act” also passed in 1995, and further impedes the exercise of local regulatory authority.  
• The “Agricultural and Forestry Activity Act”, passed in Mississippi in 1994, defines a taking to mean a reduction in the fair market value of any part or parcel thereof by 40 percent or more.  

Those pushing for the passage of “takings” legislation have promoted four types of bills that should set off red flags: 

• Impact Assessment Laws that require a designated public agency to conduct costly and unneeded assessments for proposed regulatory measures, and to adopt additional rules and regulations to determine how they will affect private property rights.  These laws are modeled after other environmental impact assessment laws. 
• Compensation Laws which require property owners to be given tax dollars when environmental laws change property use by a predetermined percentage varying from 10 percent to 50 percent.  
• Conflict Resolution Laws which set bureaucratic processes for negotiation between landowners and the public agency, sometimes through the establishment of a new office for conflict resolution. 
• Amortization Restrictions which limit or prohibit a local agency from assigning or determining the best uses of land.