Powerful lawmaker wants to ‘invalidate’ the Endangered Species Act. He’s getting close.

[GrizzlyBear]

[QUOTE=sweetbro;52870096]it may sound kind of fucked up but i honestly cant wait until these boomers drop dead.[/QUOTE]

Nothing wrong with that. You shouldn't be glad that they are dead, just that they are gone and can't enact super shitty policies which hurt the world.

[SIRIUS]

Oh don't worry, there are tons of fucks like this our age just waiting to get in

[Tudd Fudders]

Ah yes, people think this is a Captain Planet type villain for suggesting to remove or change the ESA.

Even though the ESA usually causes landowners to implement [url=http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st303.pdf]scorched earth tactics and incentive to do the opposite of conservation.[/url]

[quote]The greatest problem with the Act is its land-use control provisions. These provisions penalize
public and private landowners by:

l Fining landowners up to $100,000 and/or sentencing them to up to one year in jail for harming
one eagle, owl, wolf or other protected species, or even its habitat,[b] whether the habitat is occupied
or not.[/b]
l Prohibiting, or tightly regulating, otherwise normal and legal land uses, such as farming, lumbering,
construction, human habitation or even visiting the land.
l Providing no compensation landowners for the loss of land value, loss of income or lost use of
land.
l Extending regulations to land that isn’t currently occupied by an endangered species — but
might be suitable for the species’ breeding, resting, roosting or feeding.
l Subjecting millions of acres and millions of human residents to land use regulations for a
single protected species.

Yet, private landowners are the key to successful endangered species conservation, because 78 percent
of these species are found on private land. [b]However, because landowners are penalized for harboring
species, many of them take actions to rid their property of the species either by killing them or by applying
a “scorched earth” policy that makes actual or potential habitat unsuitable through such activities as plowing,
prematurely cutting trees or clearing brush. [/b]

The ESA’s punitive nature also helps explain the Act’s sorry record conserving species. Proponents
of the ESA cite species that have recovered due to the Act. Yet, almost invariably these claims are
untrue or exaggerated. For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially claims 46 delisted species
— 19 due to recovery, 17 due to data error, 9 due to extinction and one due to partial recovery/data
error. In reality, the delistings were due to the following:

l Twenty-seven species have been removed due to data error — including the American alligator,
which was delisted soon after its initial listing because it was found to be abundant, clearly
indicating it was never endangered and was improperly surveyed.
l Nine species were determined to be extinct.
l Five species were delisted due primarily to factors unrelated to the ESA, including the ban on
the pesticide DDT.
l Five species were delisted for a variety of other reasons including: private conservation; state,
not federal, conservation efforts; and recovery despite harm done by the ESA.

[b]Congress and others have offered cosmetic reforms to improve the ESA’s effectiveness — tacitly
admitting that the Act’s punitive approach has failed and that new approaches are needed. However, these
reforms will do little to remove the penalties that undermine the ESA.[/b]

The key to future success for endangered species protection is to set a new course based on the
recognition that landowners will be cooperative and even helpful when they benefit from, or are at least
are not harmed by, conservation initiatives. This means stripping the ESA of its land-use controls.[/quote]

There are seriously problems with the ESA and suggesting change is not being a villain at all.

And briefly mentioned why Republicans have this view here in the Washington Post article.

[quote]“It has never been used for the rehabilitation of species. It’s been used for control of the land,” Bishop said this year. “We’ve missed the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act. It has been hijacked.”

...

The law gives the federal government control over regulating use of land that serves as habitat for endangered species, with assistance from states. It specifies that decisions should be based on only science, without consideration of the economic effect. The law also helps people sue for the protection of animals or plants through the Equal Access to Justice Act, which pays the attorney fees of individuals and organizations that take the government to court and win.

Today, more than 2,000 species are listed as endangered or threatened, including Loggerhead sea turtles in parts of the Atlantic Ocean, whooping cranes in the West and the Texas golden gladecress.

Over time, some lawmakers began to argue against the law’s species management and protection. Protecting animals such as the spotted owl and blue whale cordoned off enormous chunks of forest, ocean and desert. Private landowners were sometimes restricted or blocked from certain activities on their property, from logging and oil or gas drilling to cattle grazing and housing development.

This year, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, noted that of the total species listed since 1973, only about 3 percent have been delisted. “As a doctor, if I admit 100 patients to the hospital and only three recover enough to be discharged, I would deserve to lose my medical license,” he said.[/quote]

A policy that removes the land controls and gives landowners incentive to actually practice conservation if a endangered species is on their property is what is really needed here. As of now, it is just more beneficial for a landowner to somehow get around the fines or scorch earth their property to prevent protected species to live on it.

[Raidyr]

[QUOTE=Tudd;52871811]Ah yes, people think this is a Captain Planet type villain for suggesting to remove or change the ESA.
[/QUOTE]
I think it's this part that had people thinking that
[QUOTE]
One measure would force the federal government to consider the economic impact of saving a species rather than make a purely scientific call.[/QUOTE]
I've read that policy report before. It makes several claims that, while properly cited, run contrary to nearly everyone else in their respective fields. It's conclusion that if you just let landowners take care of everything with no federal regulation then we can conserve species not only just as well as the ESA does, but better smacks of the same sort of libertarian utopian vision that says environmental regulations are unneccessarily intrusive and that private citizens will take care of their environment because it's in their "best economical interests".

Is the ESA flawed? It's a 45 year old piece of legislation. Of course it is. Should it be invalidated? I don't think so.

[Smug Bastard]

[QUOTE=Occlusion;52863546]Every day it becomes harder to imagine bringing up kids in a world like this.

How can people think this way?[/QUOTE]

[url]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_B_personality_disorders[/url]

[Ona]

Coming up: Republican lawmakers lobby to build oribital death laser on the moon, relocate base of operations to volcanic labratory shaped like a human skull.

"We look forward to further economic expansion and the creation of additional jobs for American citizens." Stated representative spokesperson Dr. Manson Murdercruel from his position atop a throne of gold-plated panda skeletons.
"In addition, have high hopes for the future of our space agencies and future diplomatic relations." He continued in this exclusive live report.

When asked how they planned to fund this operation, Dr. Murdercruel reportedly "laughed maniacally" while gesturing towards a large machine designed to convert ethnic minorities into fossil fuels before ordering a squad of masked henchmen to detain the news crew. Stay tuned for our ongoing coverage of this exciting story.