Endangered Species Act "Broken"?
Flood of Litigation over Critical Habitat Hinders Species Conservation.

Joint statement by the U.S. Interior Department (contact Hugh Vickery, 202-501-4633) and...
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (contact Megan Durham, 202-208-5634).

Distributed by U.S. Newswire, May 28, 2003

Faced with mounting numbers of court orders from six years of litigation, the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will soon run out of funds to designate critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Craig Manson said today.

More important, the flood of court orders requiring critical habitat designations is undermining endangered species conservation by compromising the Service's ability to protect new species and to work with states, tribes, landowners and others to recover those already listed under the Act, Manson said.

continued here...

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Repeal the ESA!

Someone has to say it out loud: the Endangered Species Act is a disaster. In fact, it may be the stupidest law enacted since Prohibition. Like Prohibition, the ESA reflects the will of a powerful minority, who prevail for a time, until the rest of the world realizes that the objective is unrealistic, and that the medicine is more deadly than the disease.

The bottom-feeding sucker fish in Klamath Lake has brought this issue into focus more clearly than the thousands of less prominent examples in recent years. The ESA declares that the sucker fish has more right to water than 1,400 farm families who depend upon that water for sustenance.

How stupid is that?

Step back a moment - from the sucker fish, the bald eagle, the grizzly bear, and the snail darter (and from the thousands of species no one has ever heard of) - and consider the idea this powerful minority of environmental extremists has been able to force upon the world with the ESA: Non-human species must be preserved no matter what the cost to humans.

This idea is even more stupid than the idea that government should prohibit humans from drinking "intoxicating liquors." The ESA seeks to prohibit nature from ending the existence of species.

Government could not stop people from drinking "intoxicating liquors"; it has no chance of preventing species from becoming extinct. Attempts to do so give rise to massive investment in unnatural processes that are destined to ultimate failure.

Suppose for a moment that the ESA were, or could be, successful. Would a better world result? I don't think so. To preserve all the species that happen to be on earth at this particular time in history would require an end to change. Progress would have to come to a screeching halt.

Would the world be a better place today, had the environmental extremists been in power, say 300 years ago, or a thousand years ago?

Suppose for a moment that in order to preserve the non-human species, as the ESA seeks to do, progress had been halted by global decree in 1001. We would be looking at a life expectancy of, perhaps, 40 years. If we were very lucky, we might have a horse to transport us to a tavern where we might drink rot-gut whiskey to relieve the daily misery. Of course, we would still have the pollution of the transportation system to deal with, as well.

Suppose progress had been stopped before Columbus arrived on this continent, which is the destination to which modern environmentalists say we should return. We might expect to live 45 years. Our food would be a daily struggle, and our transportation system would still be polluting by the shovel-full. Ah yes, a wonderful life for non-human species, perhaps, but a situation for humans to which only environmental wackos aspire.

If the ESA could be 100 percent successful today, it would be a tragedy for all who come after us. If we stop progress today, we condemn the people of future generations to the limits of our knowledge - and we have only begun to understand how wonderful life can be.

Nature intends for life on the planet to change. And it will - with or without the ESA. Do you think the ESA would have prevented extinction of the dinosaurs? Hardly. Change is progress. Human intervention in that process cannot improve the result, it can only slow the process.

The very idea of trying to save species flies in the face of the natural process. Environmental extremists contend that species loss is "unnatural" as the result of the habitat destruction by humans. This suggests that habitat modification by humans is not natural. How ridiculous. It is perfectly natural for humans to modify their habitat in any way their intellect and energy will allow. Inappropriate modifications bring natural consequences. Both human and non-human species learn from those consequences. Those species that can adapt through the learning process survive; those that fail to adapt, don't. Nor should they.

If the condor can no longer live in its environment, nor find another suitable environment - so be it. Such a thought sends shivers down the spine of PETA people, and others who hold non-human life to be of greater value than human life. They would contend that the "web of life" depends upon all species, and the loss of any species weakens the web that supports human life.

This argument has emotional sway, but fails the test of historic reality. This argument means that our life today would be better if dinosaurs still roamed the earth. How silly. The "web of life" lost a major chunk of its being when the dinosaurs departed the planet. I say good riddance; I'd hate to have to compete with those guys for food and shelter.

The planet will survive if the condor doesn't. The planet may no longer need whales, grizzly bears, or red-legged frogs. Believe it or not, the planet would survive even if the Klamath Lake sucker fish bit the dust. But the farmers, whose lives depend upon the water that accumulates in Klamath Lake, may not survive, if government continues its foolish effort to stop progress and preserve every species that some environmental extremist says is endangered.

Philosophically, the ESA is a flop. But the ESA is not really about saving species, this is only the sales pitch used to stir the emotions of humans who are suckers for a cuddly puppy dog, a kitty cat, a panda bear, or an injured anything. Environmental extremists have exploited the natural human compassion for animals, in order to use the law to torture humans whose behavior or lifestyle is different from what the environmentalists think it should be.

Similar to the teetotalers who used the law to torture humans whose behavior included taking a drink back in the roaring '20s, environmental extremists use the law to force other humans to behave as the environmentalists think they should.

Logging is a sin to environmental extremists; use the ESA to end logging. Mining is a sin to environmental extremists; use the ESA to end mining. Farming in the Klamath Basin is a sin to environmental extremists; use the ESA to end the farming. An ESA industry has arisen, which specializes in twisting the law to impose behavior modification on people who hold a different view.

It is time to send the ESA, and the industry it has spawned, into extinction.

It took 13 years to repeal the 18th Amendment (Prohibition). We have suffered under the ESA for nearly 30 years, but only in the last decade has it become the weapon of choice for environmental extremists. If the American people, in their collective wisdom, can overturn the extreme values of a powerful minority of teetotalers, the American people can overturn the values of a powerful minority of environmental extremists.

Our children and grandchildren will applaud us if we do, and curse us if we do not. The world will be a better place when we stop letting the extremists impose their views on the rest of us. It's time to tell your elected representatives to repeal the ESA, the modern prohibition to progress.

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The above article was plagiarized from:
WorldNetDaily.com © 2001

The author Henry Lamb is
the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and
chairman of chairman of Sovereignty International.