Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Endangered Species Act attacked at Senate hearing
A Senate hearing to “modernize the Endangered Species Act” unfolded
Wednesday just as supporters of the law had feared, with round after
round of criticism from Republican lawmakers who said the federal effort
to keep species from going extinct encroaches on states’ rights, is
unfair to landowners and stymies efforts by mining companies to extract
resources and create jobs. The two-hour meeting of the Environment and Public Works Committee
was led by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who said last month that his
focus in a bid to change the act would be “eliminating a lot of the red
tape and the bureaucratic burdens that have been impacting our ability
to create jobs,” according to a report in Energy and Environment News. In opening remarks, Barrasso declared that the act “is not working
today,” adding that “states, counties, wildlife managers, home builders,
construction companies, farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders” have
made that clear in complaints about how it impedes land management
plans, housing development and cattle grazing, particularly in western
states. At least one Republican has vowed to wage an effort to repeal the
Endangered Species Act. “It has never been used for the rehabilitation
of species,” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop,
R-Utah, said, according to an Associated Press report. “It’s been used
to control the land. We’ve missed the entire purpose of the Endangered
Species Act. It has been hijacked.” In a comment to a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director who
testified at the hearing, Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., repeated a
point made by Barrasso that of more than 1,600 species listed as
threatened or endangered since the act’s inception, fewer than 50 have
been removed. That’s about 3 percent of the total, the chairman said. “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,” Inhofe
said...more
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