FYI- Federal ESA legislation

[Mike Gilchrist]

I don't know yet that this legislation to modify the Endangered species act will actually go anywhere, but I thought it would be interesting to see what peoples thoughts were on it. I have not completely thought over all the potential impacts and if/how much it would impact us.
www.house.gov/resources/press/2002/2002_1112ESA.htm

[Straydog]

Well, I held off as long as I could.......

"I’d wager my federal pension you could make these changes and the populations of threatened and endangered species would remain the same. The numbers didn’t improve when we started stripping people of their rights. I doubt they’ll go down any once we restore those rights.”

Where do we place out bets?

To say the numbers did not improve due to ESA regulations is absurd. To say there would not be more habitat destruction without the ESA is beyond absurd.

Is there room for improvement in the ESA? Yes.

Is this the way to achieve it? Absolutley not.
[img]graemlins/stupid.gif[/img]

[ 11-14-2002, 09:43 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[Fishplay]

Food for thought.......reserving comment!
Thanks Mike for posting it.

[ssteelheadsteve]

I want to see this moron's daily medication list.
What is that stuff the Indians ( Native Americans ) in Utah smoke ?
Hansen must be downwind during Native religious ceramonies.
Thanks for the Posting.......................

[SandySteel]

The stuff they smoke is called peyote.
Why do I know this? I had to present a case to a mock Supreme Court when I was in college over the use of it for religious purposes. Interesting case.
Hansen is an idiot. Regardless of what part of the political spectrum you come from I think we can all agree that the ESA is an important part of keeping fish runs alive in this part of the country. This guy is just looking for a lucrative spot on the board of some corporation that needs a piece of legislation like this and this helps pad his resumé.

[GutshotApe]

The congressman from Utah may be an idiot - and may not understand the "big picture" - but he is doing his job of representing his constituents. Thousands of people across the US have unnecessarily been put out of work, thrown out of their homes, and had their lives disrupted thru the mis-use and abuse of the ESA.

It has always intrigued me how people put so much stock and faith in the wording of the ESA which was passed 30 years ago without sufficient debate or knowledge of its effects. Written in back rooms by un-named and faceless staffers, the ESA was not perfectly conceived.

The ESA probably IS the most powerful piece of legislation enacted with respect to limiting human activities on the landscape. Did the members of Congress and the President (Tricky Dick) really understand what the act contained when they passed it? Did Congress really intend to give obstructionists (radical environmentalists) veto power over any and all federal land mgmt. decisions? Did they intend the act to prevent any and all use of private land if an owl happened to be seen there once (that's all it takes!)? I doubt it.

I think it is safe to say the next Congress will revisit the ESA. And, in light of the perverse abuses of the law over the last 30 years, some badly needed changes will be forthcoming.

[wallyw]

High time the ESA and it's attack on our Constitution was s*******. All God's creatures will benefit from its demise.

Wally

[Straydog]

Gutshot,

Pretty interesting argument.

A couple of things to consider.

1. From personal experience I am here to tell you that obstructionist behaviour is certainly not unique to the environmental movement. I sit on a committee with an officer in the So. Oregon Timber Industry Association and can assure you that obstructionist behvior is a tool your boys use at will also.

2. Your argument conerning intent of a law written 30 yeas ago sure adds a lot to the argument anti gun folks use about an element of our constitution written a couple hundred years ago.

If we are going to use historical intent to support our actions concerning the ESA, we had better be well prepared to use it for the second ammendment as well.

Be careful what you wish for. There were no semiautomatic weapons when the constitution was written. There were no prefabed cartridges. There was no slow burning powders.

You are asking for a very slippery slope of interpretations when you offer the unanswered (regardless of popular opinion) question of "intent" when second guessing the founders of such laws.

[Fishbulb]

Thirty years of effort is an infinitesimal amount of time in which to judge this act and how it has benefited species. Old growth characteristics in forests, for example, can take more than 100 years to develop. Stream beds thick with sediment and devoid of original small sized gravel will take longer than that to flush the mud and even longer to wear down to other rock to sufficient size. Work such as fish passage engineering has really barely even begun due to lack of funding. Benefits from this work are not likely to be reaped for more than another thirty years.

Exempt private lands? They may as well repeal the entire act. It is as simple as that. Federal, state and municipal lands ( and zoological gardens) are insufficient in area and habitats to ark all species into the future when their habitat is restored ( yeah right!). Many species have ranges where there are no public lands to relocate them to. Oh, but wait, we are not talking about relocation from private to pulic lands we are only talking about landowners rights to extripate endangered species by default. Gee whiz, I didn't want the salmon in that stream to become extict but I had to cut the timber right to the stream bank because it was the only way I could do it economically. Just picture this senerio repeated millions of times all over the country and with countless other species little by little whittling their numbers away all over again.

Exempt all plant life? The feaking foundation of all life on this planet is plant life. Talk about a brain dead polititian. Nutrients get cycled in the real world and ecological relationships at this level may yield repercusions at higher levels like the grizzly, wolf and bald eagle.

I don't mind people saying that wild fish don't matter to them. Or that private property rights should win out over endangered species. Everyone is entitled to have their opinion about this and in the end we all face off at the polls and whoever can get the most votes or control the most election proceedings can win and I am ok with being on the loosing side if thats what happens. But this guys article is just a big load of **** . Don't sit there and tell me species will do no worse if we gut this act. Tell me what you really think, that fact that you don't give a darn about the plight of wild plants and animals in our country and that you, your campaign bankrollers and constituent voters believe that species that can't go into their mouths or that they can not profit from are expendible and should be allowed to become extinct if they cannot survive the positions we put them into. Please don't wave smoke and mirrors. Just give me your real position.

Think ODFW's new wild fish policy means much now that this storm is on the horizon? I don't.

[ 11-17-2002, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Fishbulb ]

[Straydog]

Good points Fishbulb.

It is my opinion that we are just beginning to learn the consequences of our actions of the last 50 years and the next 50 will likely bring to light many more mistakes we have made historicaly in terms of resource 'managment'.

Even one hundred years is but a blip in time in the "big picture" of natural process.

[GutshotApe]

Straydog - There is a big difference between the US Constitution and an act of Congress such as the ESA with respect to how they were written and how much scrutiny they have received. Several federal laws passed in the 1970s & '80s (NEPA, NFMA, ESA, etc.) have had effect far beyond what most people expected or intended when they were passed. These laws have been used very effectively to prevent all sorts of federal (and private) land activities. That was not necessarily the intent of Congress when it passed the laws. "Intent" of Congress or the Legislature is of paramount importance and is what courts look to for guidance when deciding cases.

I'm not anti-ESA but I don't like how it is arbitrarily & selectively imposed - usually on rural areas of the country that don't have the votes to counter it. For example, steelhead once were found in streams as far south as the Tijuana River. The LosAngeles River, San Gabriel River, and many other so. Cal streams had viable runs 70 - 80 yrs ago. Now, NMFS has declared the southern CA steelhead to be extinct south of Malibu Creek even though a few fragmented populations apparently still exist south of there. Whenever so. Cal has a wet year, native rainbows from high in the San Gabriel and other mountains smolt and go to sea. They return, or try to return 2 yrs later and sometimes are lucky and find enough water to enter the concrete-lined river channels that pass for rivers. Spawning is another matter. The steelhead genes reside in the resident trout populations which are holding out high in the mtns.

If it is OK to impose strict restrictions on land uses in Oregon to protect relatively abundant native fish, why don't we show the same resolve to recover the southern California steelhead?

I want the Los Angeles River restored to it's native habitat and I want wild steelhead back in the Los Angeles basin!

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

GSA

I just spent the last two hours snooping the Internet viewing the writings of Jim Lannan PhD OSU and would have to say both of your views and arguments are very similar. Perhaps it is both the era and the school that create the similarities. :tongue:

The ESA is the intellectual “line in the sand” that we promised ourselves we would try not to cross with regards to threatened plants and animals. How it has been enforced should not affect the goals that any caring person should try to achieve, healthy, natural animal and plant populations for current and future generations.
:smile:

[GutshotApe]

*** - Ow! That hurt! There may be a superficial resemblence between some of my arguments & views and those of Jim Lannan but I disagree with him on many issues. You apparently don't know as much about me as you think you do .

Only a true, left-wing radical environmentalist would say, essentially, the end justifies the means.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

GSA

Sorry, but you used nearly the exact same phrases and arguments that he did while touting hatcheries.

I apologize if I have offended you and you are correct that I may not know everything about you. I have learned a lot, and now I know one more of your “Buttons” that can be pushed
[img]graemlins/program.gif[/img] :grin:

[GutshotApe]

*** - No offense taken. I associate Jim Lannan with the folks from the Alsea Alliance who think the ESA is merely a ploy for "the govt." to take over private land (it may be used for that by some but that's another story). At a meeting of the PFMC a couple of years ago Lannan expounded on his views about hatchery salmon. After he was done an enlightened commercial fisherman, Carl X from Newport, stood and summarily dismissed Lannan's remarks as "the demented ramblings of a spawned-out has-been OSU fisheries prof."

Nobody disputed Carl's observation.