Sen. Dennis Pyle, left, R-Hiawatha, argues in favor of regulating the use of conservation easements during hearings in the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

Topeka ? A bill being supported by several rural lawmakers that would limit the ability of landowners to set aside land for conservation in perpetuity drew strong opposition Wednesday from environmental groups and the Kansas Department of Wildlife Parks and Tourism.

Senate Bill 425 would give counties authority to regulate the use of conservation easements, a tool that allows property owners to set aside land for conservation, even after the person granting the easement sells the property or dies.

Supporters of the bill say those easements permanently impair the ability of future generations of farmers and ranchers to use the land, although they are still required to pay for maintenance and property taxes, while the organizations purchasing the easements carry none of that cost.

Ondre Rexford, a farmer from Meade County in southwest Kansas, testified at an earlier hearing last month and said he and his family “are a glaring example of the consequences to future generations” from perpetual conservation easements.

Sen. Dennis Pyle, left, R-Hiawatha, argues in favor of regulating the use of conservation easements during hearings in the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

In 2011, he said, his 94-year-old grandfather sold such an easement to the Natural Resource Conservation Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for what his grandfather described as “a whale of a lot of money,” not knowing that he was signing away cerain rights to the land forever.

“As a result of the easement, the only use we have of the property is to lease it for hunting,” he said in written testimony. “The hunting lease covers less than half of the annual property tax bill — provided we can keep it leased.”

The bill would give counties authority to adopt regulations establishing standards and conditions for conservation easements, including the duration of easements and the types of property eligible for such easements.

But as hearings on the bill continued Wednesday, Wildlife Parks and Tourism Secretary Robin Jennison said conservation easements are an important tool for protecting natural resources. He also said he took offense at Rexford’s story, and the suggestion that farmers and ranchers as people who aren’t sophisticated enough to understand easement contracts.

Robin Jennison, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, says the state should have no role in regulating the use of conservation easements.

“Agriculture has been my business for my life until I got here,” said Jennison a former farmer from Healy and a former Speaker of the Kansas House. “My dad will be 90 years old in August. He would not dream of doing something like that without consulting an attorney.”

Jennison also said any regulations that a county adopts could be construed as a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and counties could be taken to court and forced to compensate affected landowners.

Rob Manes, state director of the Nature Conservancy, an organization that purchases conservation easements from landowners, also testified against the bill, saying conservation easements are voluntary contracts.

“It gives an organization like mine the ability to effect a conservation goal that’s commensurate with a landowner’s vision without owning or getting involved in the agricultural management of that land,” he said. “If we don’t like what the landowner wants to do agriculturally, we don’t take the easement. If they don’t like the terms of our easement, they don’t take the easement.”

Sen. Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha, said he believes conservation easements are fundamentally unfair because the entity acquiring the easement receives the benefit in perpetuity, but the landowner still has to bear all of the costs associated with owning the land.

“And I’m just wondering if the state needs to step in and say, if you’re going to do conservation easements in perpetuity, then there are going to be some guidelines that people buying the easement are going to abide by, and they’re going to have to share in responsibility for some of those burdens down the road,” he said.

Sen. Marci Francisco of Lawrence, the ranking Democrat on the committee, argued that selling a conservation easement is no different than selling mineral rights to the land, and the state doesn’t stand in the way of those contracts. But Pyle replied that mineral right owners are different because they share in the cost, and the taxes, associated with the land.

Sen. Larry Powell, R-Garden City, who chairs the committee, said hearings will continue on the bill. And he indicated it may be referred to a subcommittee for further work before the full panel votes on whether to send it to the full Senate.