Posted on 09/27/2005 5:40:12 AM PDT by w1andsodidwe
STOCKTON -- A group of environmentalists, farmers, and fishermen gathered in Stockton Monday to protest legislation by Rep. Richard Pombo that it says tears holes in the federal safety net for wildlife living on the brink of extinction.
The group, following a brief news conference, hand-delivered to Pombo's Stockton office the signatures of 3,000 Californians objecting to Pombo's revised version of the Endangered Species Act.
Former Rep. Pete McCloskey -- a Republican like Pombo -- co-authored the original 1973 law and stood nearby when President Nixon signed it into law.
McClosky said he's so angry about Pombo's bill, he is tempted him to leave retirement, move from his home in Yolo County and oppose the former Tracy city councilman in the next congressional election.
"We have a duty to prevent the extinction of species, and the act has done that well," McCloskey said.
McCloskey credited the law with saving the bald eagle, California condor and the Pacific salmon from extinction.
Pombo and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, introduced the legislation last week.
Days later, the House Resources Committee, which Pombo chairs, approved the bill.
McCloskey and other opponents are urging other members of Congress, who are expected to consider the bill this week, to oppose the rewrite.
Pombo, a rancher by trade, has tried to change the law since ever he took office in 1992. He says the stories of the bald eagle and the salmon are exceptions, and that the law has failed to foster recovery for the vast majority of endangered plants and animals.
Pombo's and Cardoza's bill delays the designation of land for an endangered plant or animal until studies show it the land to survive.
The bill also gives tax breaks or grants to property owners who help endangered species on their land.
Pombo spokeswoman Nicole Philbin, who was not at the news conference, said the bill was an example of Republicans and Democrats working together.
"It's bringing common sense and science back to the law," Philbin said.
Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, labeled the legislation the "Pombo Extinction Bill."
"This is reprehensible and ill-conceived," Jennings said. "It will embezzle from our children's future."
Cindy Lashbrook, owner of River Dance Farms in Merced County, said the legislation encourages developers to build in the Central Valley, paving over fertile farmland.
Building more homes takes valuable farmland out of production while creating longer commutes for the newcomers, she said.
"We should be working to keep the farmers farming, and not the developers developing," Lashbrook said.
Details of the legislation, HR3824, are available at www.thomas.gov
Contact reporter Scott Smith at 209 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com
Pombo is only reinforcing this pitiful excuse for an eco-blackmail law.
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ESA Reform Bill [TESRA - H.R. 2834] Is A Step Backward
James Buchal - September 23, 2005
The latest attempt to reform the Endangered Species Act (the Act), H.R. 3824, titled "The Threatened and Endangered Species Reform Act," or TESRA, contains positive features.
However, this bill would make Section 7 of the Act even worse. This Section of the Act looms above all others for the carnage it has caused throughout the West.
Section 7 of the Act declares that federal agencies must avoid taking action that would "jeopardize the continued existence of listed species."
Lawsuits filed under Section 7 are responsible for exterminating small timber operators (owls), Klamath Basin farmers (suckers), doubling electricity rates in the Pacific Northwest (salmon), and creating countless other poster children for Endangered Species Act reform.*
Once upon a time, the meaning of "jeopardize the continued existence of" was clear: Congress wanted to make sure that agencies did not exterminate a listed species.
If an agency did wish to take action that would do so, the agency would have to get an exemption from the "God Squad."
It was called the "God Squad" because the premise was that, if an exemption were given, the species would be exterminated. Other parts of the Act call for recovery plans for listed species, but Congress wisely recognized that some federal actions might have to proceed -- whether or not they impeded the recovery of listed species.
Pombo's bill changes Section 7 by adding a definition of "jeopardize the continued existence of" to the Act:
"The action reasonably would be expected to significantly impede, directly or indirectly, the conservation in the long-term of the species in the wild."
This is a radical departure from the simple concept of not wiping species off the face of the earth.
Under H.R. 3824, any and all federal agency actions must now cease if they are deemed to "significantly impede" "conservation" -- even "indirectly".
From a definition already in the Act, we know that "conservation" means "the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this Act are no longer necessary."
In other words, "conservation" means doing everything necessary to fully recover listed species to the point where they can be removed from the list of protected species.
If the Pombo bill passes, the question will no longer be whether federal agencies threaten to exterminate an entire species; the question will be whether or not what they do is would "directly or indirectly" impede the conservation programs of the fish and wildlife agencies.
In a context where those agencies are infested with biologists who are eager to spend countless dollars to save a single fish or rodent, almost any use of public resources (other than paying said biologists) can -- and will be -- characterized as "significantly impeding" conservation.
The inevitable result of Pombo's bill is that environmentalists will have a much more powerful tool for shutting down any federal agency action with which they disagree.
To make matters worse, the Pombo bill removes the "God Squad" from the Act entirely, so that now -- when federal judges issue crazy Endangered Species Act injunctions http://www.buchal.com/salmon/news/nf84.htm -- the people of the United States will be utterly powerless to stop them through their elected representatives.
It is true that we haven't elected anyone with the courage to actually convene the God Squad in a long time, but why on earth would anyone remove this safety valve from the Act?
Representative Pombo and Walden may not have fully considered the implications of their changes, but the meager benefits of their bill pale beside the larger harm these problems promise.
If this is an innocent mistake, they should be willing to revise the bill to remove these changes to Section 7.
If not, the bill should be killed on the floor.
Don't the enviros believe in evolution? Isn't extinction evolution's penalty for a species' failing to adapt to changes in its environment? By taking extraordinary measures to preserve species, we're thwarting nature's plan. Or so I would argue with these people.
I will never forget, in the late 80's after several years of drought, we had a really wet winter in Central California.
One of the rivers that runs through the valley suddenly was full of Salmon after not having any for many years. The head of the California State Fish and Game Department made a statement (printed in the Stockton Record) that he had no idea why the fish came back.
While the newspapers take on it was that it was a miracle, I thought the guy should be fired if he didn't understand why the salmon returned. Seems to me this was his Michael Brown moment, but of course he was a demonRAT, so everyone just considered it a miracle.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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