The purpose of the conference is to examine how the shrinking amount of taxable private property in rural counties leads to below-average economic conditions for businesses and people in those areas.

Additionally, the conference will focus on the changing management of federal lands and how this affects rural counties and forest users in the mountains.

“The right to own private property that cannot be arbitrarily regulated or confiscated by the government is the moral and constitutional basis of individual freedom. The majority of the citizens we represent agree with that statement,” said Dr. Dan Eichenbaum, a Cherokee County commissioner and an organizer of the conference. “That’s why they (and we) choose to live in rural America. And they expect us, their elected officials, to protect their private property rights from burdensome regulation and outright confiscation by state and federal governments.”

The Conference will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Swain County Center for the Arts at Swain High School. All property owners, elected representatives, and concerned citizens are encouraged to attend.

Myron Ebell, Director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, will be a keynote speaker at the conference. In addition to his work at CEI, Ebell chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, which comprises representatives from more than two-dozen nonprofit organizations based in the United States and abroad that challenge global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies.

Ebell has worked on energy and environment issues for more than two decades, and has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows.  Recently, Ebell headed President Donald Trump’s administration’s transition at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Another featured speaker at the conference will be William Perry Pendley, President and Chief Operating Officer the Mountain States Legal Foundation. MSLF is a “nonprofit, public interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system that defends constitutional liberties and the rule of law.”

During the Reagan Administration, Pendley served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Minerals of the Department of Interior, where he authored Reagan's National Minerals Policy and Exclusive Economic Zone proclamation. He was a consultant to former Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr., and was engaged in the private practice of law in the Washington, D.C., area before his return to the West in 1989.

He has argued cases before the Supreme Court of the United States as well as various federal courts of appeals. His monthly column, Summary Judgment, appears throughout the country, and he is the author of five books: It Takes A Hero (1994); War on the West (1995); Warriors for the West (2006); Sagebrush Rebel (2013), and Summary Judgment (2015). He is admitted to practice law in Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

Other speakers include Howard Hutchinson, Executive Director of the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties for Stable Economic Growth and Dr. Dan Eichenbaum, Cherokee County commissioner and founder of the Coalition of Rural Appalachian Counties.

Event sponsors include Freedom and Land Rights Coalition, Inc., Competitive Enterprise Institute, Coalition of Rural Appalachian Counties and Dr. Dan’s Freedom Forum.

For questions or more information contact Charlene Hogue, 828.371.8247 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..