Jack Fields: “What I am saying is if I as a property owner impact your property, you have a civil cause of action against me for…”

“What I am saying is if I as a property owner impact your property, you have a civil cause of action against me for damages. What we are talking about in this particular piece of legislation, if the Federal Government comes in through a regulatory act and takes your property because of an endangered species declaration or a wetland designation, you have the same right that I have whether you are a developer, a farmer, a private homeowner. There is no distinction. Under this bill, as I understand it, if the Federal Government took that action to restrict those activities which harmed everybody downstream, that gentleman would have to be compensated. It certainly diminished his development value more than 10 percent.”