Property Rights, Public Law, the Police Power, and the Eminent Domain Power

Thanks again to Eugene for letting me blog at the VC this week about my new book—Natural Property Rights, published with Cambridge University Press and available for purchase now digitally and in hardbound version, at a variety of bookstores.

Most American 1L property courses end with discussions of regulatory takings and eminent domain. I'll follow suit here.

Before I get started, though, a disclaimer. In the book I did not, and in this post I will not, make any claims about the legal meaning of any statute or constitutional clause. Natural Property Rights is a work of normative theory. It focuses on what statutes and constitutional guarantees should say, not on what any current statutes or guarantees do say.

Imagine that a local government makes it illegal to emit more than a certain