HR 3824 Endangered Species Act . Important!

[Carla in Ca]

This bill was introduced by Pombo -R (CA-11). It is being voted on tomorrow. In the diary posted below, the Capitol Hill switchboard phone number is listed. Could you please, please call to tell your Representative to vote no.
<http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/28/141953/269>


snip...

HR 3824 is titled the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005". That's a misleading title, though. A better name for it would be the "Congressman Richard Pombo Hates the Endangered Species Act Act of 2005."

See, Rep. Pombo (R-CA-11) is the chairman of the Resources Committee, which oversees much of American conservation policy. And it's a bit of an understatement to say that he doesn't like the Endangered Species Act. To Pombo, the ESA is a failure -- and it gets in the way of developers and other special interests.

So last week, he came gunning for it. He introduced this bill into his committee, then proceeded to ram it through -- the committee voted on it a week after it was introduced -- and now he's got it on the calendar to be voted by the full House tomorrow.

More. Please read. This man is on a mission to destroy.

[davidinalameda]

1. already sent an email to Rep. Stark

asking him to vote no

[Carla in Ca]

2. You, my dear, are a peach!

Thanks a lot for caring.:applause:

[davidinalameda]

3. no problem

I received an email about the bill this morning

[NVMojo]

4. Got this House PR yesterday, they are using their staffers to market

From: Kennedy, Brian
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 6:50 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Defending ESA Failures


FYI -



Some of America's so-called environmental organizations are running huge deficits in rational explanations for defending the failed Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, so some have resorted to (or continued) running shameless advertisements like the following:

PHOTO OF EAGLE WITH BLOOD SMEARED ON IT that says "DESTROYING THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT IS LIKE DEFACING AMERICA"

Using these scare tactics, of course, is much easier than defending the fact that the ESA has only recovered 10 - or less than 1% - of the species on its list after more than three decades of implementation. It's probably even harder for them to defend that the fact that 60% of all listed species are either "declining" or in "unknown" status. (Yes, they're either dying off or we have no idea how they're doing.) And believe it or not, 3% are actually "believed to be extinct."



The (not so) bright side of things is that 6% are "improving" and the remaining third of all species are classified as "stable." But this "stable" status doesn't necessarily reflect successes of the ESA. Instead, it is usually the result of corrections to original data error. (As in, "Oops - just found a million of them - guess these critters aren't really endangered."). *Data from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service* http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/issues/more/esa/implementationreport.htm



Nonetheless, most of the environmental community will tell you the ESA has been 99% successful. (Yes, even when presented with the above statistics.) Why? "Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief," is how author and M.D. Michael Crichton might explain it.



But not all environmental organizations are completely out to lunch and/or driven solely by fundraising and partisan politics.



The Peregrine Fund, for example, is actually dedicated to species recovery. Unlike enviro-lobbyists who litter Capitol Hill with silly graffiti, The Peregrine Fund is a hands-on and non-political environmental organization - one of the few that has played a key role in the successful recovery and delisting of an endangered species. While other groups tell you how the ESA "has worked" from their offices inside the Beltway, the Peregrine Fund will tell you how its practical application in the field must change to make it a truly effective law.



According to the Fund's president, the current ESA is often unnecessarily bureaucratic, punitive and inhibitive of real species recovery efforts. Click here to read what he believes must be done to improve it for species recovery. http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/issues/more/esa/peregrinefund.pdf



When you're finished, re-read the bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA) of 2005, note that it has 70-plus cosponsors from 30 states around the country, and ask yourself why certain groups calling themselves "environmental" are on the wrong side of updating a 33 year-old law and improving its abysmal rate of species recovery. Perhaps they "enjoy" all the conflict it causes now.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/issues/more/esa/esa.htm

# # #





Brian J. Kennedy

Communications Director

House Committee on Resources

[phone]

[texastoast]

7. How dare they use my tax dollars for that crap????????

I really want to get out my can of whoopass. "Scare tactics"? Really?? What this shit isn't telling anyone is that the law allows the developers to be reimbursed for complying with the Endangered Species Act which is nothing more than protecting our children's heritage and sets no limits on these payments, draining the funding needed to protect wildlife and their habitat.

Corporate law writing, that is what this is.

:mad:

[texastoast]

5. Here's a link from the League of Conservation Voters

You can send an email.

http://action.lcv.org/campaign/pombo_esa

[Catchawave]

6. I hate the way they word these bills !

Where a yes means a no, and a no means a yes!

Wrote my rep and gently reminded her I feel sorry for any rep who votes 'yay' tommorrow! Voters don't like fuzzy-wuzzy killers :evilgrin:

[dusty64]

8. I really hope that

pombo fucker goes down in flames soon. I've loathed him for years.

[Carla in Ca]

9. Are you in his district?

If so, who is the Dem running against him? Perhaps we could get something going in the CA forum for the next election.

[dusty64]

10. Fortunately no, but

my "rep" is little better. I've followed environmental issues for many years and he is one of the most anti_Earth extremists ever.