“Fed-up” landowners have
said “enough” to feeble efforts by Congress to “fix” the
Endangered Species Act (ESA). That’s why a coalition of
property rights groups, led by the American Land
Foundation, Stewards of the Range, the American Policy
Center, Liberty Matters, and the PFUSAGrange have now
gathered more than 6,300 signatures to a letter calling
for repeal of the ESA.
The letter is being delivered to Senator James Inhofe
(R-OK), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment
and Public Works. His committee will soon consider
legislation to “update” and “improve” the ESA.
The House has already passed the Threatened and
Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA). The Senate is
considering a bill sponsored by Senator Mike Crapo
(R-ID) called the Collaboration and Recovery of
Endangered Species Act (CRESA). While the House version
makes at least a weak attempt to compensate landowners
when the ESA is invoked, the Senate version offers
nothing for them. Both bills confirm the worst fears of
landowners about how serious Congress is about actually
addressing the real problems of the ESA.
The coalition opposes those legislative efforts to “fix”
the ESA and instead is calling for outright repeal of
the existing law, saying there can be no fix of the
worst legislation ever produced by Congress.
Since its enactment in 1973, the ESA has penalized
landowners unlucky enough to have an endangered species
on their land. Farmers, ranchers, tree farmers,
homeowners, and others who harbor endangered species or
habitat on their property are subjected to severe
land-use restrictions that can lead to economic ruin.
“Rather than a solution to helping endangered species,
the ESA has become a very powerful tool, used by radical
environmentalists who want to stop literally any use of
certain lands for any purpose,” said Dan Byfield,
president of the American Land Foundation of Taylor,
Texas. “The entire community of Klamath Falls, Oregon,
was literally chocked to death as its water supply was
shut off to protect a sucker fish that isn’t
endangered,” said Byfield.
Yet, as Coalition leaders point out, all of the pain
caused by the ESA to landowners is really for nothing as
far as endangered species are concerned. “In the 33
years since the ESA has been on the books, just 34 of
the nearly 1,300 U.S. species listed have made their way
off of the endangered list,” said Margaret Hage Byfield,
executive Director of Stewards of the Range based in
Idaho. “Of this number,” she continued, “9 species
are now extinct, 14 appear to have been improperly
listed in the first place, and just 9 (.6% of all
species listed) have recovered.” Concluded Hage, “that’s
a 99% failure rate that proves the ESA is nothing more
than a powerful tool for special interests groups to
promote their political agenda.”
These are the reasons why the coalition is calling for
outright repeal of the ESA. “There is only one valid
answer to this outrageous situation,” said Tom DeWeese,
president of the American Policy Center, Warrenton, VA.
“Repeal the ESA and, if necessary, start over.”
To that end, the coalition has generated more than 6,300
signatures for the letter to Senator Inhofe to demand
repeal of the ESA . These signatures aren’t from members
of rich and powerful lobbying groups. They are from the
landowners, business owners, and community leaders who
are suffering from the ESA.
In part, the letter says, “Congress needs to revisit the
wisdom of the Founding Fathers who believed the
ownership of property must be secured from government
intervention for liberty to exist. Take that security
away through environmental laws like the ESA, and not
only is liberty not secure, it no longer exists. You
have only to look at the past 30 years since the
enactment of the ESA to see what it has produced – the
dramatic destruction of property rights and the failure
to recover species.” “Landowners need heroes to
stand for us and protect our private property. It’s time
to listen to us for a change,” said Byfield, appealing
to the Congress to take a stand for property owners.
“In this day when Americans have come to understand the
horrors of widespread government abuse of eminent
domain, such as in the Supreme Court’s Kelo
decision, we should rightly fear the creation of a new
ESA that could best be called Kelo 2,” concluded
DeWeese.
The coalition maintains a website at
www.repealesa.us where the full letter may be
viewed and signed.
CONTACTS:
Tom DeWeese, American Policy Center, 540-341-8911
Dan Byfield, American Land Foundation, 512-365-2699
Margaret Hage Byfield, Stewards
of the Range, 208-855-0707
This TRA feature has been edited in
accordance with TRA’s
Statement of Policy.
Click here to return to TRA's Issue
LVI Index.
Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel,
Eden against the Colossus, here.
Read
Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise,
A Rational Cosmology,
explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time,
sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, at
http://www.geocities.com/rational_argumentator/rc.html.
]
|