page_59 < previous page page_59 next page > Page 59 meaningless observation that regulation may or may not result in a taking depending on the circumstances (U.S. House 1993). Even a staunch advocate of property rights such as Nancie Marzulla concedes that assessment laws "have serious weaknesses" in this regard (Marzulla 1995). The Delaware attorney general has confessed to providing "canned" analyses of takings impacts (Sugameli 1993). Empty analysis is only half the problem. These laws encourage state officials to overstate the risks of takings and discourage them from protecting the public. A Congressional Research Service review of scholarly literature found that legal experts were "largely critical" of the order for these reasons (U.S. House 1993, p. 172). The order also imposes special and unnecessary, restrictions on health and safety regulations that are not justified by case law (U.S. House 1993). Leading legal scholars, in a 1993 letter to President Clinton, identified several of these unnecessary hurdles to regulation. They cited directives stating that regulations must "substantially" and not just "rationally" advance a government purpose, be "no more restrictive than necessary,'' and be designed to prevent harms that are "direct, immediate and demonstrable" (U.S. House 1993, pp. 13941). Since many health and safety regulations operate in a world of imperfect knowledge, where preventive action precedes scientific certainty, these hurdles could shut down rules that protect people Yet unsafe drugs, dangerous workplaces, and carcinogenic chemicals. Yet states such as Utah, North Dakota, and Arizona included similar language in their laws to inhibit public protection. States have borrowed and will continue to borrow from the executive order to write their laws and will no doubt use the order and its interpretative guidelines as sources for developing their own guidelines. Inaccurate and faulty interpretations may find their way into state guidelines or agency practices even if they are excluded from authorizing statutes. The Wyoming law encourages state officials to supplement the guidelines with "any other relevant information as may be determined by the agency." Also, takings assessment laws provide states opportunities to invent their own rules for takings. Louisiana, North Dakota, and Texas laws seek to redefine takings in terms of actions that reduce the market value of property by a certain percentage. While these laws carve out exceptions for certain measures, they impose an unprecedented standard for a taking, running counter to the long-established principle that "mere diminution in value of property, however serious, is insufficient to constitute a taking."4 States such as Washington have attempted to steer clear of the biases 4.Concrete Pipe Products v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California, 113 S.Ct. 2264, 2270 (1993). Â < previous page page_59 next page >