From Thomas Bray, writing in today’s WSJ Opinion Journal:

[T]he EPA is always happy to put your money where its mouth is, even when there is no congressional mandate to do so. As economist Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Institute has documented, the EPA has handed out about $9 million in recent years to private advocacy groups, such as Environmental Defense and the Gulf Coast Institute, to spread the antisprawl message.

Nor is EPA the only source of such funds. In the name of smart growth, the Transportation Department is shoveling money into the hands of mass transit advocates. Under a little-noticed program inserted in the mammoth Transportation Efficiency Act of 1998, in fact, DOT has handed out millions for studies and research on smart growth, says Mr. O’Toole. And Nancie Marzulla, president of the Washington-based Defenders of Property Rights, has uncovered a collaboration between the Housing and Urban Development Department and the American Planning Association, which produced a 2,000-page ‘Legislative Guidebook’ that constitutes ‘a comprehensive blueprint of model statutes and planning guidelines whose goal is nothing less than centralization of land use planning.’

I don’t get it…Are we petitioning for entry into the EU or something…?

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