The Endangered Species Tax

by Hugh Holub

The Endangered Species Act commits us to saving not only every species…but every sub-species and every distinct population segment of a species or a sub-species.

Sounds like a popular idea in concept.

But does anyone realize how much this is costing our economy?

We have in effect an Endangered Species tax in this country.

The Endangered Species Tax is expressed in two ways.

The first way is virtually every federal project that involves disturbing the environment has to go through an Endangered Species Act review.

US Fish and Wildlife gets a chance to extort money from other federal agencies in exchange for approving other federal project activity.

Take for example the $50 million US Fish and Wildlife got from Department of Homeland Security to study bats because the Border Patrol drives around federal lands and they might run over a protected lizard.

Or take the millions of dollars being transfered from the Central Arizona Project to restoire native fish in Arizona becvause in theory exotic fish from the CAP canals could swim up the Ssanta Cruz River and eat native fish.

Whatever Congress appropriates to to US Fish and Wildlife, that agency controls vastly more money through “inter-agency agreements” with other federal agencies where Fish and Wildlife extorted money from thos other agencies in exchange for allowing their projects to go forward.

Congress needs to dig into all the inter-agency agreements between US Fish and Wildlife and other federal agencies and find out just how munch money Fish and Wildlife really controls. I’ll bet that will surprise a lot of people.

And then Congress needs to stop US Fish and Wildlife from hijacking other federal agency funds.

The second Endangered Species Tax is the cost added to every project in the country that is added to get federal approval for that project.

These costs turn up in habitat protection plans and other mitigation measures that projects are subjected to by the federal government and environmental groups who sue to block these projects.

Want to build a solar energy project? You will probably have to fork over money to protect the desert tortoise.

Want to build a natural gas pipeline? You will have to fork over money to protect mice. El Paso Natural Gas got hit for $22 million to get approval to build a gas pipeline through Nevada.

Want to drill for oil or natural gas in West Texas? You will add millions to your cost to protect sage lizards.

I’ll bet that we have at least a 10 percent cost added to virtually every project in the country that disturbs land in some way because we have prioritized protecting darned never everything that grows or walks or crawls in this country.

Somwhere along the way people need to have a say as to how much money we’re going to divert from our economy to protect what.

If there is no genetic difference between the wolves that live in Montana or Michigan or eastern Arizona…why are we spending money to have wolves in eastern Arizona?

If there are lots of jaguars in Mexico and all the way to Brazil….why are we going to spend millions to have jaguars in southern Arizona?

If there are 27 sub-species of squirrels….why are we spending money to protect one sub-species on one mountain top in Arizona?

There are a lot of good questions that need to be asked about how the Endangered Species Act really works and how much money it is costing to protect plants and critters that may not even really be endangered at all.

The Endangered Species Act really is not about protecting plants and animals any more.

It has been twisted into a tool to block virtually any project that disturbs the land.

Radical environmental groups that really want to destroy the American economy have turned the ESA into their weapon of choice to strangle America.

And taxpayers are paying for killing the country.

We have been bamboozled into a costly guilt trip via the Endangered Species Act and our priorities are seriously skewed when on one hand we really want to secure our border and we have people fighting finishing the border fence because that will interfere with jaguar migration.

Let’s find out how much we are spending via federal inter-agency agreements and cost additions to projects in the country and see if we are really getting our money’s worth.

And of course radical environmentalists will argue money is no object in protecting endangered species.

That is your money and the more of it siphoned away to protect sage lizards in West Texas, the less you will have for Social Security and Medicare.

This column first appeared at Views From Baja Arizona, Hugh Holub's blog for the Tucson Citizen.