Green Activists Are Using an Ancient Legal Theory to Seize Private Land — Without Writing a Single Check
The public trust doctrine — a legal theory older than the republic itself — is being stretched by environmental regulators and activist courts far beyond its original boundaries to restrict private land and water use, all without triggering the Fifth Amendment's requirement for just compensation. What began as a sensible principle governing navigable waterways has become a constitutional backdoor for some of the most aggressive property confiscation in American history.