What is the Public Trust Doctrine Easy Definition

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Public trust doctrine is a legal principle establishing that the government owns and manages certain natural and cultural resources for public use. Natural resources held in trust can include navigable waters, wildlife, or land. The public is considered the owner of the resources; the government is entrusted with managing these resources.^{[1] [2] [3]}

History

Illinois Cent Co v. State of Illinois City of Chicago

In 1869, the Illinois State Legislature granted certain submerged lands to the Illinois Central Railroad. These lands included all land under Lake Michigan one mile out from the lake's shoreline. In addition, the railroad company received a one-mile stretch of submerged land near the central business district of Chicago. In 1873, the legislature repealed the grant. Further, the legislature brought a court action in order to invalidate the 1869 grant. In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Illinois, finding that states have public ownership of all submerged land in navigable waters. The court determined that states manage these lands in trust for the public and that no state legislature can abdicate its authority as the trustee of these resources. Though the ruling held that states cannot cede their authority as trustees over resources managed for public use, the court did not prohibit states from allowing private entities to control certain resources. Rather, the court held that Illinois' decision to grant approximately the entire waterfront of Chicago to a private entity constituted an abdication of the state's authority to manage the whole of an area as a public trust.^[4]

Geer v. Connecticut

In the 1896 case Geer v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court of the United States held that states own wild animals within their borders as a public trust. At issue in the case was whether a Connecticut prohibition against the killing, buying, and selling of birds within the state's borders fell within the state's constitutional power. The court ruled that a state legislature "may withhold or grant to individuals the right to hunt and kill game, or qualify or restrict, as in the opinions of its members will best subserve the public welfare." In addition, the court ruled that states can only exercise their right to manage wildlife within their borders "in so far as its exercise may not be incompatible with, or restrained by, the rights conveyed to the Federal government by the Constitution."^[5]

Hughes v. Oklahoma

In 1979, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in Hughes v. Oklahoma, which reversed the court's earlier holding in Geer v. Connecticut. The Oklahoma State Legislature passed a law prohibiting individuals from selling minnows captured within Oklahoma to anyone outside the state. The court ruled that, while states can enact laws to conserve wildlife within their borders, a state cannot enact laws that prohibit the commercial use of wild animals and other natural resources for commerce across state lines. The court argued that such laws violate the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress has the sole authority "to regulate commerce...among the several states." The court ruled that a state's conservation of wildlife and other natural resources must be tailored to allow for interstate commerce.^[6]

Debate

Some proponents of the public trust doctrine support applying it to additional resources, including groundwater, surface waters, and some private lands. These proponents argue that such an expansion would further protect these resources fro overuse. Opponents of expanding the doctrine to other resources argue that private ownership is more efficient and conserving some resources, such as large tracts of land, than public ownership. These opponents argue that public ownership reduces the incentives for managing these resources according to costs and benefits.

Proponents

Some proponents of the public trust doctrine argue that the doctrine should be applied to more water resources, including all surface waters (lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds) and groundwater (which is a common source of drinking water). For example, the Center for Progressive Reform, a nonprofit organization "dedicated to protecting health, safety, and the environment through analysis and commentary," argued in a 2009 report that lower river flows and depleted water wells justify using the public trust doctrine to place these waters under public ownership and management. The report's authors argued in favor of the following actions:^[7]

• States should announce that water resources will be held under public or state ownership. In addition, states should issue documents outlining their plans to manage water resources for public benefit.
• States should announce that individual water rights consist solely of a right to use water rather than a right to own water.
• Groundwater should be declared a public or state-managed resource for public use. The report's authors argued that increased demand for drinking water justifies the need for more comprehensive ownership and regulation of groundwater sources.
• States should publish a list of public trusts and how they will be managed and used.
• Hearings should be held in order to invite public participation in determining water use and management.

Opponents

Some opponents of expanding the public trust doctrine beyond certain resources argue that the doctrine does not promote efficient management of resources on private lands and waters. For example, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a nonprofit organization "dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets," argued in a 2007 report that private resource owners are better able to manage their property because they are held accountable for their decisions. The report's author contended that private owners have an incentive to manage their land efficiently because they face negative consequences, such as a loss of property value, if the property is managed poorly. By contrast, the report's author argued that under the public trust doctrine, no single owner of a resource exists that can evaluate the costs and benefits of land management decisions. As a result, public access to land or other resources, such as rivers and streams, would promote overuse and eliminate incentives to manage the resources.^[8]

The report's author further argued that expanding the public trust doctrine to more resources would undermine the Amendment V|Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that private property cannot be taken "taken for public use without just compensation." Some opponents of expanding the doctrine argued that such expansion would narrow the legal scope of private property rights and allow the federal and state governments to re-define an individual's right to use private resources and thus declare the resources as a public trust.^[8]

See also

• Glossary of energy terms
• Ground water

Footnotes

1. ↑ State of Washington, Department of Ecology, "The Public Trust Doctrine," accessed January 29, 2014
2. ↑ Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository, "The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resource Law: Effective Judicial Intervention," January 1, 1969
3. ↑ The Wildlife Society, "The Public Trust Doctrine," accessed February 14, 2017
4. ↑ Open Jurist, "146 U.S. 387 - Illinois Cent Co v. State of Illinois City of Chicago," accessed March 26, 2015
5. ↑ Legal Information Institute, "Geer v. State of Connecticut - 161 U.S. 519 (16 S.Ct. 600, 40 L.Ed. 793)," accessed February 14, 2017
6. ↑ Justia, "Hughes v. Oklahoma - 441 U.S. 322 (1979)," accessed February 14, 2017
7. ↑ Center for Progressive Reform, "Restoring the Trust: Water Resources and the Public Trust Doctrine, A Manual for Advocates," September 2009
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Property and Environment Research Center, "Property and the Public Trust Doctrine," April 2007

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