Posted on 06/21/2002 6:58:24 AM PDT by dalereed
JOSEPH PERKINS
Southern California's biggest landowner
Joseph Perkins
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
June 21, 2002
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com.
How much is a half-million acres of prime Southern California land worth? Not so much, a federal judge decided last week, that it should not be retained as "critical habitat" for the coastal California gnatcatcher and the San Diego fairy shrimp.
The Bush administration had asked Judge Steven V. Wilson to invalidate the designations, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put in place two years ago.
It was not because the administration is hostile to gnatcatchers and shrimp and other endangered species, as its critics in the environmental community contend, but because Fish and Wildlife neglected to conduct a proper economic impact study before making the bird and crustacean the biggest de-facto landowners in Southern California.
That clearly is contrary to both the letter and spirit of the Endangered Species Act, which marks its troubled 30th anniversary next year.
Under the law, signed by President Nixon – a Republican like Bush – the federal government was legally required to "take into account the economic impact of specifying any particular areas as a critical habitat."
But, as years passed, environmental activists began to exercise increasing influence with Fish and Wildlife, other relevant federal agencies and the more liberal federal courts.
So the Endangered Species Act was turned on its head. It came to be interpreted as mandating protection of species at all costs.
And nowhere has the corruption of that law been more evident than in California, where more valuable acreage has been set aside for assorted critters than any other state on the mainland.
The Fish and Wildlife Service web site lists some 113 threatened or endangered species, from the Amargosa vole to the Zayante band-winged grasshopper.
And, in considering or designating critical habitat to protect these and other creatures, the agency has concerned itself almost exclusively with the putative benefits of setting aside so many thousands of acres for habitat, while giving little thought to the costs to private landowners, developers, local governments and others who aren't voles or grasshoppers.
Indeed, up until last year, when the Bushies took over for the Clintonistas, Fish and Wildlife dared to insist that commandeering a half-million acres in Southern California for the gnatcatcher and the fairy shrimp would have negligible economic effect.
This prompted a spate of lawsuits from Southern California developers, who estimated that the agency's dictate would cost the regional economy as much as $5.5 billion.
District Court Judge Wilson did not side with the Bush administration. Or with the developers. But he agreed that Fish and Wildlife cannot designate critical habitat without taking economic consequences into account.
In fact, he ordered the agency to go back and do a more thorough analysis of the cost of designating the half-million acres of land in Southern California off limits to development and other activities.
And he gave Fish and Wildlife officials 10 months to get it done, less than half the time they said they needed.
All of which suggests that the federal judge ultimately will decide that gnatcatcher and the fairy shrimp can survive with far less protected acreage.
In the meantime, Wilson's ruling holds up construction of 14,000 homes by a development company, Rancho Mission Viejo, as well as a toll road by local transportation agencies.
"This is really good news," said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, in remarks published in The Los Angeles Times. The council is one of the environmental groups that successfully mau-maued Fish and Wildlife into creating protected habitat for the gnatcatcher.
The environmental crusaders couldn't care less about Southern California's severe housing crunch. Or about the region's severely congested freeways.
And the suspicion here is that they are interested in gnatcatchers, fairy shrimp and other endangered critters only insomuch as they provide a convenient pretext to block developers, to staunch growth.
That's why implementation and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act has spun out of control. That's why the law has precipitated so much litigation.
Of course, the federal government and the federal courts should protect endangered species. But, it is only logical that the costs of measures taken to protect them – including designation of critical habitat – be weighed against the putative benefits.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Their millions of followers are nothing but mindless parrots that are constantly being swelled in their ranks by the government mind control institutions falsly called public schools.
It is beyond comprehention how they can continue to consider the knatcatcher endangered when they are discovered on almost every project that is proposed, there are aparently millions of them everywhere.
Bingo! well said..
what about the poor blue spotted salamander..
If Rancho Mission Viejo gets built, it will sit next to a very private enclave of Nixonian Californians in Southern Orange County. These are the people who are trying to get it stopped, and they will win. Because they have money.
I predict that Bush will NEVER EVER EVER make a statement about this issue again - - because he knows where is bread is buttered.
The Bush administration had asked Judge Steven V. Wilson to invalidate the designations, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put in place two years ago.
It was not because the administration is hostile to gnatcatchers and shrimp and other endangered species, as its critics in the environmental community contend, but because Fish and Wildlife neglected to conduct a proper economic impact study before making the bird and crustacean the biggest de-facto landowners in Southern California.
That clearly is contrary to both the letter and spirit of the Endangered Species Act, which marks its troubled 30th anniversary next year.
Under the law, signed by President Nixon – a Republican like Bush – the federal government was legally required to "take into account the economic impact of specifying any particular areas as a critical habitat."
But, as years passed, environmental activists began to exercise increasing influence with Fish and Wildlife, other relevant federal agencies and the more liberal federal courts.
So the Endangered Species Act was turned on its head. It came to be interpreted as mandating protection of species at all costs.
And nowhere has the corruption of that law been more evident than in California, where more valuable acreage has been set aside for assorted critters than any other state on the mainland.
This is significant!
They have personnel with only misguided beliefs and evil intent, as evidenced by the Colorado incident!
Good catch!
These days, trespassers don't have to set foot on the property, they hire lawyers to sue the property owners to give up their lands for the illusion of environmental protection.
This in time of war.
Obviously, the US federal government considers the "rare gnatcatchers" to be of more value than the lives of our young Marines.
The only consolation is that opposed amphibious assaults aren't going to happen any time in the future--we aren't willing to spend a few thousand bodies a strip of beach. And the alternative is Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS), which places a premium on using the natural maneuverability of naval forces to hit the enemy where he isn't.
History teaches otherwise.
The era of total war between great power nation-states ended September 2nd, 1945; it ain't going to come back. The elites of those nation-states don't want to become radioactive air pollution.
The problem we face for the foreseeable future is total war waged by subnational groupings. In this, a great power may attempt to facilitate said total war; if they do, they will probably regret doing so. I'm beginning to think that our effort to support the Afghani resistance was a pretty stupid idea.
The biggest problem in dealing with this warfare will not be destroying the enemy; it will be in finding him.
I've heard one very radical idea that might be worthy of discussion: declassify all of the data from our national intelligence systems (overhead imagery, SIGINT and COMINT, et cetera) and just post it on the web for all Americans to read and analyze. Give generous bounties to those who connect the dots and either (a) stop the terrorists, (b) apprehend the terrorists, or (c) both.
280 million Americans sifting the data can't do any worse and might do much better than the current crowd.
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