Sun editorial:

Protect endangered species

Bush administration proposes changes that would gut successful law

Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

The Bush administration won’t come right out and say it, but it detests the Endangered Species Act. It views the 35-year-old federal law as a nuisance, something that gets in the way of highways, dams and parking lots.

On President Bush’s list of national priorities, the protection of plants and animals is somewhere near the bottom.

That was made clear Monday when the administration, represented by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, proposed that enforcement of the law be left up to individual federal agencies. The way it is now, any plans, such as those for construction projects, must be reviewed by scientists and other experts at the federal Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The administration proposal would eliminate those independent reviews, allowing agencies instead to make those determinations on their own. The problem, of course, is that most other agencies don’t have their own wildlife and habitat scientists. That’s why we have a wildlife service and a fisheries service. After more than seven years in office President Bush still hasn’t figured that out.

Independent scientific reviews as allowed under current law are there for a reason. If the law didn’t exist, agencies under pressure to show results would simply rubber stamp projects. Wildlife and fisheries scientists help ensure that species aren’t wiped out because of reckless development.

The Endangered Species Act has proved over time that there is room for both species preservation and development, despite gripes from developers that the law costs them money. But the Bush administration threatens to tilt that delicate balance too far in favor of construction projects. The agencies should not be allowed to trample on threatened and endangered plants and animals simply to meet project deadlines.

If the proposed administrative changes are allowed to take effect, the law will be in danger of becoming toothless. The result, undoubtedly, would be the extinction of countless species that are now just barely surviving.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By KDR81

8/14/08 at 8:51 a.m.

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don't forget, it gets in the way of nature itself!
By lemahj

8/14/08 at 9:39 a.m.

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From my point of view this entire editorial is false; what I don’t know is if the editors actually believe what they have written.

I claim:

That the Endangered Species Act is being used to further the socialist goal of eliminating individual property rights and a billion dollar make work program thousands of Environmental Scientists and University Professors.

That the global warming debate and legislation is being coupled to the Endangered Species Act in order to provide Socialists, hiding under the cover of Environmentalism, additional tools to further their control over the individual, and force the collective state on the people.

What seems to be forgotten is that the cornerstone of our freedom is our Natural Human Rights, which dictate that to be free the people must have the right to own and use their property for their own prosperity. That said, this does not mean that the use of that property can degrade another person's property. But here is the rub, environmentalists are claiming that normal activity of a civilized human society may be harming an entire planet thus that activity must be stopped. When we were talking about particulate smoke out of a steel mill, or raw sewage in a creek or river, that argument made sense. After all, I don's have a right to build a dam and turn your property into a lake or a sewer. But it appears that the global warming argument has been deliberately created to justify a means to an end, from an environmentalist's perspective.

I see President Bush acting to reign in the this abuse of the law, while those who have benefited from this law, fighting his actions with every trick and lie they can use.

I do not deny that Global warming or cooling may be occurring, but the final thought I want to make is, that the strength of any species is the ability to adapt to change. For the record, I do have a copy of Chaos on my library book shelf, right next to Lovelock's "The ages of Gaia" and Darwin's "The Origin of the Species". So yes, I am aware of most of the arguments.
By lemahj

8/14/08 at 9:39 a.m.

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The Endangered Species Act has become perverted the way it is currently being used by the Socialists that want to further strengthen their collective grip on society under the faux cover of being environmentalists. To say you are doing something for some noble cause, when the goal is in fact nothing more to advance an otherwise unacceptable agenda, i.e. the collective state, is simply dishonest. I claim that in addition to the Endangered Species Act being hijacked and turned into something never intended by Congress, that Global Warming is a well funded elaborate hoax that has taken decades to nourish whose purpose is nothing more than to advance the Collectivists cause. The Scientists and University Professors know where they are getting their paycheck from, and they also know what they must do and say in order to stay in the game. Those who don't play the game are being tossed out, and ostracized by the rest of those already on this billion dollar gravy train. We are not talking hard science here; we are talking about political science, money and power. To those who think I am wrong, look at the facts and look hard where the money goes. Look at how the environmentalists are working the system to their own gain. This is not about saving the world; it's about creating a new collective world government, with Al Gore as its first prophet.

Hopefully over time humans will learn from their mistakes, and if they don't they will meet a similar fate of the peoples of Easter Island. But recall, indigenous people of the Polynesian islands and of the Hawaii Islands didn't meet that same fate; they learned and adapted to exist in harmony with their world. The fact that we are self aware sentient beings allows humans to adapt to our environment, but that fact does not guarantee that we will. We do have choice, and we also have the ability to choose poorly.

Many environmentalists and collectivists quietly claim that the only real solution to the world problem is some variation on the theme of decimating the world's human population. But this variation is not to eliminate one in ten, it is to eliminate ninety-nine or more out of a hundred of the world's population, to a size that mans existence no longer taxes the environment of the world. And let's not forget that the quiet practice and support of Eugenics is alive and well in some circles. Who has not heard an environmentalist call the human race a virus or cancer, to the well being of the living world.

So, the collectivist's real goal is to first create a collectivist world government that can then address the world's population problems. To this end, the ideas of individualism and private property rights must be eliminated . . . and this is being done. The world has been on a socialist track since Karl Marx, but was derailed when Socialism and Communism failed. But the same goals are now being accomplished under the cover of environmentalism, but truly the ultimate goal has not changed.
By Future2012

8/14/08 at 10:55 a.m.

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Not to worry. The environmentalists sue to stop everything now, and will sue to stop everything in the future.

They never trust analyzes of any of the individual federal agencies. So why should they care if they sue fewer of them. They will never stop suing, suing, and suing.
By neiman1

8/14/08 at 11:04 a.m.

Suggest removal

Environmentalist sued BLM over solar in the desert to access the impact and set solar farms back for years as the courts will now handle it. What do these wacho's want. The endangered species act was originally to save the Bald Eagle and animals like that. It is not used to save a sub, sub, species of a bug or a vernal pool (puddle) that has a sub species of microscopic shrimp or an owl that lands in the highest tree around so NO trees can be cut in California, even though it lands in the next highest tree if its gone. Pelosi and Reid are ruining our country and bankrupting Nevada.

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