The big environmental threat no one is talking about

Across the nation, 6,000 acres of open land are lost to development each day. This trend is irreversible and continues to erode our environment and threaten the ability of my children – and their children, someday – to enjoy our natural habitats, clean air, drinking water and wildlife. In fact, between 2010 and 2060, total urban and developed land area is expected to increase from 30 million acres to 69 million acres.

At the same time, our country’s state and federal investments in conservation are dwindling and will also be constrained by historic deficits and other public obligations. In fact, today’s federal investment in land, water and wildlife programs only make up around 1 percent of the federal budget.

{mosads}It is clear that state and federal governments alone cannot compete with the growing rate of development when it comes to adequate land conservation in our country. As renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold rightly predicted decades ago, “conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.”

Recognizing that, in 1980, Congress amended our nation’s tax code and passed legislation to encourage private

landowners to permanently conserve their lands by offering a tax incentive. In order to qualify for this deduction, landowners are required to donate a conservation easement to a qualified land trust and obtain a qualified appraisal of the land’s development rights for the purpose of substantiating any tax deduction claimed. Since then, the tax code has helped incentivize many landowners, including those in the form of family and other real estate partnerships, to donate millions of acres and play a critical role in the protection of our nation’s valuable natural resources.

As Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) Senior Fellow Dominic Parker, explains, “bipartisan support for conservation easements exists because politicians know that this program works and brings important benefits to communities throughout the country.” From the Corn Belt to the Sun Belt, and everywhere in between, conservation easements by private individuals are conserving important lands for current and future generations, all without relying on federal dollars.

To build on this progress and further encourage landowners to make the choice to conserve property, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed enhanced federal tax benefits for conservation easement donations in 2006 and made this important policy permanent in December 2015.

This valuable tool, which has encouraged people from all walks of life to join together through conservation partnerships and protect land for the benefit of generations to come, is largely working as Congress as intended.

Over the last several years, some have rightly raised concerns about limited instances of overvaluation with conservation easement donations – that is, appraising the donation for more money than it is worth to receive an enlarged tax deduction. This is a problem that we can solve through sensible solutions that do not put our shared goal of conservation at risk. Unfortunately, some within and outside of Washington have taken steps to significantly undercut the ability of unrelated individuals to conserve lands via partnerships by holding up the rare abusive transactions within a large pool of conservation easement donations that are fully compliant with the law.

In particular, a measure introduced in Congress last month, (S. 170), oversteps in attempting to address the issue of valuation abuse and would unfairly limit the ability of anyone but the wealthiest individuals or families to participate in conservation. Supporters of S. 170 assert that the bill would “not stand in the way of reasonable deals or partnerships created to advance conservation,” but that is simply not true.

In fact, overly aggressive actions like these set a dangerous precedent for tax policy and administration by arbitrarily targeting law-abiding taxpayers. This proposal would limit the private sector’s ability to contribute to our country’s conservation needs and turn back the clock on decades of land conservation progress with harmful and lasting consequences to the health of our environment.

Like anything decades-old, or where limited abuse may occur, common-sense improvements to current laws can and should be made, which in the case of conservation, would continue our important progress while safeguarding taxpayers and upholding the integrity of the program. That’s exactly what the Partnership for Conservation, a diverse, national coalition of stakeholders of which I am the executive director, aims to do.

We are focused on ways to address and prevent abuse, where and when it occurs, while working to strengthen and preserve conservation partnerships, not limit them. As such, we are offering proposals that directly address concerns around overvaluation such as requiring a second, “independent appraisal,” enhancing the definition of a “qualified appraisal,” bolstering the educational requirements to be a “qualified appraiser” and producing greater visibility and transparency to conservation easement donations.

But we can’t do this alone. That’s why we’re calling on anyone who shares our commitment to conservation to join us.

As an avid and lifelong sportsman and conservationist, I am committed to preserving for future generations the lands that that are critical for both people and nature to thrive. By working together and continuing to expand access to conservation efforts, we will do just that.

Robert Ramsay is the executive director of the Partnership for Conservation (partnershipforconservation.org).