Legislation aimed at limiting the reach of the Endangered Species Act comes up Tuesday in the House Natural Resources Committee, where Democrats lack the votes to counter any GOP moves on the act.
Among the bills the committee plans to markup are:
* A measure by U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, a Republican from Texas, to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to require review of the economic cost of adding a species to the list of endangered or threatened species.
* A proposal by U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state, to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to require making available all data that is the basis of a determination of endangered or threatened species to states affected by the determination.
* A measure by U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to provide that nonnative species in the United States shall not be treated as endangered species or threatened species.
Also on the committee's agenda is legislation to delist the gray wolf in the western Great Lakes and Wyoming from Endangered Species Act protection, and block any legal efforts to overturn the delisting. The measure was introduced by Rep. Collin Peterson, a member of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
Rep. Peter Visclosky, a Democrat from Indiana, has asked the committee to approve legislation to rename Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as Indiana Dunes National Park.
The committee meeting gets under way at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Longworth House Office Building.
Comments
The cost of not putting a creature or plant on the endangered species list would have to be calculated to include all the costs to the entire ecosystem, from now until thousands of years from now, if that living thing were to disappear and thus cease performing all the ecosystem services that it provides. This of course, would have to include the cost of losing other living things that relied on the species in question, and the living things that relied on those living things. This is why the endangered species act was created in the first place. To protect entire systems of life on which we ourselves, as biological creatures, depend for our very lives. What is the cost of having clean oxygen to breathe? What is the cost of having clean water to drink? What is the cost of losing an apex predator such as the wolf and having an entire ecosystem be overgrazed by the elk that the wolf once kept in check? Who is going to calculate these costs? Businessmen who don't know the difference between a wolf and a coyote?
This is what happens when profit becomes a prime motive.
"More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction) yet we seem to be getting along just fine. How many will we save with the endangered species act? Yes cost is a factor. Do I want to see the wolf disappear? No, and the cost to save it probably aren't all that high. For other species, including invasive ones, the cost, direct and indirect, might be much higher relative to their planatary contribution and those costs should be taken into consideration.
"For other species, including invasive ones, the cost, direct and indirect, might be much higher relative to their planatary contribution and those costs should be taken into consideration."
And who is to make that determination? And how?
ecbuck still does not see that he read it wrong
It's an eye condition called Factual Myopia. It's a common type of near-blindness among many practioners of certain political and economic ideologies.
Here's an excellent example: "More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. "
Although it is true, that comment shows a complete lack of knowledge about the history of life on earth. There's a whole lot more to the story than that. The total fallacy of our Esteemed Comrade's trolling can be exposed by simply reading the rest of the article from which this paragraph was cherry picked.
There is absolutely no point in trying to reason or argue with one suffering from Factual Myopia. It's a type of blindness caused by refusal to see and understand facts instead of inability to do so.
"Don't feed the trolls".
Argalite, please elaborate. Tell me what I read wrong.