Some legitimate claims of environmental transgressions are not adequately addressed by the federal government. For example, a large private enterprise operating on public land might be polluting citizen’s private properties down-river, but the citizens may be unable to extract adequate compensation or remediation due to the fact that the offending enterprise has powerful members of Congress in its pocket. The Equalizer Amendment in its first paragraph gives citizens the ability to sue the federal government either for negligence or for exercising favoritism. Citizens can bring such a suit in a local, state, or federal court with the same ease as that with which the federal government can sue private entities for criminal negligence or bribery. Moreover, the offenders within the government will be subject to the same fines, penalties, litigation assessments, and/or jail time as would be applicable to the officers of an offending private organization. Once the Equalizer Amendment is fully enacted, you will see a marked improvement in the responsiveness of the federal government.

After citizens have had a chance to assess the remarkable improvements in governance brought about by the Equalizer Amendment and the dramatic improvement in the economy and the standard of living that result, the citizens of many states may insist on enacting similar amendments to state constitutions. State governments, too, will then become responsive to citizen’s complaints.

One thing we all need to be aware of is the looming environmental disaster that awaits us as federal government deficits continue to mount. Now that we have passed the tipping point at which increased taxation results in lower federal revenue due to a worsening economy, the federal government will have no choice but to cut back on federal activities. The first to go will be the most diffuse, least visible, least unionized activities, such as the management of national parks, national forests, and other lands under federal control. Already, the federal government has abandoned park lands in Arizona to the Mexican drug cartels. Trash and pollution from illegal immigrant traffic is piling up in these areas as well as in parklands such as the Anza Borrego Desert in Southern California and in similar areas in other locations all along the border. The traffic is endangering plants and wildlife in these areas. The federal government cannot afford to adequately guard or clean up these lands.

The problem will expand to other national lands, where poaching and the denuding of vegetation will proceed unimpeded as citizens in need struggle to survive. In addition, the government will find itself unable to adequately police industrial activities under its purview. We saw the results of this type of situation in the Soviet Union, where Chernobyl wiped out huge amounts of real estate, and in the Eastern Bloc and China, where pollution ran rampant. The Equalizer Amendment reverses this trend by taking unconstitutional activities out of federal hands (see “Oversized Government”) thereby freeing up its budget to cover those activities, such as border control and management of federal lands, that are legitimately within the federal purview. In addition, the Equalizer Amendment requires the federal government to pay state property taxes on federally managed lands within each state that has such taxes. This gives such states much-needed revenue with which to improve stewardship, and it will encourage the federal government to sell lands that it cannot afford to manage adequately to states that can afford to buy and manage the lands. Most importantly, though, the Equalizer Amendment, through its improvement in governance will usher in a new era of economic prosperity, and history has shown us that the most prosperous nations are the ones that best manage the environment. We will be able to afford to buy high-performance electric cars, install environmentally friendly energy sources, indulge in sustainable agriculture, etc., so that we can bridge the gap between where we are now and the clean future. Also, as historical experience has shown, the greater prosperity will result in a lowered birth rate and a more sustainable population.

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

-- Winston Churchill

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