An Act to Prohibit the Federal Government from Owning Property in the State Not Specifically Authorized in the United States Constitution (2005)
In its original draft, this bill prohibited the federal government from owning land in the state of Maine other than for national security purposes. The state would have been forced to purchase Acadia National Park, portions of the White Mountain National Forest and tens of thousands of acres in other federal conservation areas at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. When opponents pointed out that it was unconstitutional, the bill was revised to prohibit any feasibility study regarding the formation of a national park in Maine without the approval of two-thirds of the voters in each community included within or abutting the proposed park area. One need not support the formation of a national park to see the prohibition of ideas as unreasonable, farfetched, and a poor approach to debating the value of preserved land.
