Human needs should come first in environmental policy

Ever hear of the Yellowstone Sand Verbena? Probably not, since the only place this plant is currently known to grow in North America is a beach in the national park bearing that name in Wyoming. Or how about the Meltwater Lednian Stonefly, which is only found in Glacier National Park in Montana? That one will be gone by 2030, thanks to global warming, assuming global warming is a reality, as claimed by some scientists. Or it may be frozen by the new little ice age predicted by other scientists. These are two of 29 species -- including 20 plants, six snails, two insects and a fish -- the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says may require federal actions to avoid extinction under the Endangered Species Act. As Examiner Columnist and Chapman University Law School professor Hugh Hewitt explains elsewhere in today's edition, such policies will "essentially sequester large swaths of private property from all use for years." There won't be a dime of compensation for the private property owners involved, either. But the injustices to private property owners hardly begin to describe the full human toll exacted by current law, which embodies a fundamentally unbalanced view of the proper relationship between man and nature...WashingtonExaminer