Harpo11: "The environmental bullies are like a pack of dogs."
Posted on 09/04/2001 6:37:21 AM PDT by Neets
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION CLOSES
COURTHOUSE DOOR -- HON. DON YOUNG
(Extension of Remarks - September 25, 1996)
[Page: E1679]
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HON. DON YOUNG
in the House of Representatives
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1996
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to your attention a terrible injustice. The victims of this injustice are hardworking, taxpaying American citizens who are being deprived of basic rights guaranteed to each citizen under the Constitution. Those rights are the right to due process of law and the right to equal protection of the law. Due process guarantees that when the Government might cause us harm, we should have a right to be heard. Equal protection requires equal treatment before the law.
If the Clinton administration has it's ways, our citizens will be gagged and denied the right to be heard when they want to complain about what their Government is doing to them under the guise of protecting endangered or threatened species. The lawyers argued that people's economic, social or recreational concerns are not within the `zone of interest' of the ESA and therefore, they cannot sue to have the Court decide if the Secretary had violated the law.
The judge threw the ranchers out of court, but they appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. Once again. Secretary Babbitt's attorneys argued that the ranchers could not sue to have the Secretary's actions reviewed by the court, because they have no protections under the ESA. This is called the zone of interest test. The ninth circuit in Bennett v. Plent, 63 F. 3d 915 (1995) agreed with Secretary Babbitt's lawyers and once again threw these ranchers out of court ruling that they were not within ESA's zone of interest. The ranchers have now appealed to the Supreme Court. However, Secretary Babbitt's attorneys are now worried about the political consequences of having everyday people denied access to judicial review of Secretary Babbitt's decisions, so they have quit arguing that these ranchers are not protected by the ESA. Instead, they are still arguing that these ranchers should not be allowed to sue but are basing their arguments on other legal technicalities, such as claiming that the ranchers sued the wrong Government agency within Secretary Babbitt's vast Department. At the Supreme Court level the case is known as Bennett versus Spear.
Putting it in layman's language--Secretary Babbitt's lawyers have opened the door of the courthouse to the environmental lawyers, given them millions of dollars of taxpayers money to pay for their lawsuits, and invited them to keep coming back. This has spawned a cottage industry for so-called environmentalists. Although the Federal Government subsidizes hundreds of environmentalist's lawsuits, they have slammed the door of the courthouse to average citizens just trying to protect themselves from abuses by Secretary Babbitt's Department. I have attached a list of cases filed under the ESA and the attorney's fees received by the lawyers in each of these cases. This list was supplied to the Committee on Resources by the Department of Justice.
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Go to link to see list of Enviornmental Lawsuits and the amounts of OUR tax payer dollars they were granted to make their cases RE: the Endangered Species Act.
I know this is old, don't know if anything has come along to change this.
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/104cong/esa/fees.htm
We're praying for you here...
I wonder if that gives her automatic membership in the American "Constitutional" Society?
This is why people are beginning to THROUGHLY DESPISE the federal government, and they know it. They interpret "lawless action" according to their own interests, and openly defy anyone to do anything about it. If you do, then no holds barred. Jail, bankruptcy, burned alive. And some wonder why we have cynical days.
I wish the court order could be void because of the typos.
A few more hours!!!
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