Obama environmentalists favor birds over business

By William Perry Pendley

Westerners cheered the Obama administration’s September decision not to designate the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act; listing would have meant more federal land lockups, additional red tape, and further litigation by environmental groups that use the act to make people do what they want. The sigh of relief had barely left western lips before federal officials declared — purportedly to protect the sage-grouse — closure of tens of millions of acres of western land to mining and imposition of a Draconian and illegal rule that kills current and future economic activity. Westerners are fighting back in court, but relief is years away.

...Immediately, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and the Idaho State Legislature filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C.; they were joined days ago by a 105-year-old mining association. Meanwhile, Nevada’s Elko County, which stands to lose $31 million annually in agriculture, mining and energy development activity, and Eureka County along with two small mining companies, sued in federal district court in Reno. A month after filing, they were joined by Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Recently, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association sued in federal district court in Cheyenne, contesting the planned limits on grazing.

It is not only western governors’ efforts to balance sage-grouse conservation with the need for economic activity that are being mocked by Obama officials. Decades ago, Congress, fed up with various presidents’ usurpation of its constitutional role in managing federal lands, sharply limited the executive branch’s authority to withdraw public lands, limits that the sage-grouse orders boldly ignore. Westerners are fighting back, but if the past is any indication, Congress will remain feckless, impotent and uninvolved in the face of Obama administration lawlessness.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

      
William Perry Pendley, an attorney, is president of Mountain States Legal Foundation and author of “Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today” (Regnery, 2013).