For a long time now, analysts at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation have felt that the solutions being offered to the country's vast environmental problems haven't reflected the conservative worldview.

As senior research fellow Jack Spencer put it yesterday, from a policymaking standpoint, the conservative answer to environmental challenges often involved "just doing liberal things, but just doing less of it."

To help change the conversation, the Heritage Foundation is offering the "American Conservation Ethic."

First published in 1996 and recently updated with a new set of policy recommendations, the "American Conservation Ethic" offers guiding principles for a comprehensive -- and, of course, conservative -- vision for environmental reform.

The goal is to provide a new lens through which environmental issues can be analyzed and discussed both on Capitol Hill and around the county.

The principles and policy recommendations revolve around the ideas of individual liberty and the free market with the federal government taking a step back to allow states and localities to craft their own answers to unique challenges.

"It's not that we reject the notion that there needs to be environmental policies," Spencer said at a media briefing yesterday. "We think that states and localities are better purveyors of those policies than Washington."

Spencer said the principles are starting to take root -- from state and local government planning to the Republican Party platform of 2012 -- as the Heritage Foundation has tried to spread the word about the "American Conservation Ethic."

He also said the latest version of the document, which has been in development for more than two years, is different from a recent effort by the Conservation Leadership Council (CLC).

Formed last year and featuring several former George W. Bush administration officials, the CLC hopes to be a new voice for free-market, limited-government conservation efforts that can garner support and reignite environmental debate in conservative and libertarian circles (E&ENews PM, Jan. 8).

But Spencer said Heritage's goals are broader than what CLC is doing.

"They are addressing discrete problems ... and applying, to one extent or another, a market-based approach," he said. "What they do not seem to be doing ... is really questioning the overall backdrop of environmental policy as it exists today, which is what we do."

But the Heritage Foundation's document is also full of specific policy recommendations -- which the foundation put together with the help of conservative leaders, researchers and former agency heads. The recommendations cover issues including U.S. EPA's regulatory reach, carbon emissions, international environmental laws and several other areas.

For example, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) was tapped to put together a section on government claims on private property.

Cuccinelli writes that federal seizures of private property have become increasingly pervasive under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. He argues that because the court system has failed to properly protect the American public's right to property under the Fifth Amendment, federal and state legislation is needed to scale back regulatory abuse and protect private property. Doing so, he argues, would more effectively protect natural resources.

One recommendation Cuccinelli makes is for Congress to pass the controversial "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act." The bill would prevent any regulation having an annual economic impact of $100 million or more from going into effect unless Congress specifically approves it.

Opponents of the measure say the REINS Act would destroy the ability of agencies to pass new rules to protect public health and safety and would provide special-interest groups a new way to block regulation.