Environment
needs governmental help
Lee Underwood
The House of Representatives voted 229-193 last week to overhaul the Landmark
1973 Endangered Species Act, our nation’s
most powerful environmental law.
Why should I care? If the Endangered Species Act overhauls, I may never see a
manatee, grizzly bear or grey wolf ever in my lifetime. But there’s always
the Discovery Channel.
The Endangered Species Act came into being because of an overwhelmingly vivid
realization that we are responsible for the environment. Within the act, Congress
found various species of fish, wildlife and plants in the United States have
been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development without
adequate concern. Other species of fish, wildlife and plants are in danger or
threatened with extinction. These things are of value to the nation. The United
States should conserve the various species facing extinction.
Some animals in danger include the grizzly bear, grey wolf, manatee and the spotted
owl whose population dwindled down to double digits.
The implications of extinction go way beyond my desire to see them in the wild.
The entire natural food chain is affected. The Endangered Species Act protects
not only the animal, but the habitat vital to its health and renewal. In short,
its survival.
So now what? After 32 years, the populations of certain endangered species have
come back to healthy numbers. The Endangered Species Act is doing its job.
Can I use the maxim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” here?
With so many horror stories these days, why would we trash legislation that has
proven to be a sweeping success story?
If the overhaul is successful in the Senate, endangered species and their habitats
can be de-listed as a giant step backward for the natural community and a huge
step forward for ranchers, private golf club developers, logging companies and
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), all of which are eternally in debt to their
government paymasters.
The BLM is currently involved in chipping away at the 261 million surface acres
of public land under its control and leasing them off to the highest bidding
oil and gas company. A newly overhauled Endangered Species Act could open up
more pristine public land, which can then be auctioned off for development.
Under the overhaul, a politically appointed panel will have the ability to make
scientific decisions about “critical habitats” that limit development.
The interior secretary would be responsible for granting development rights to
companies and for determining whether or not development would harm protected
species. The flawed logic here is if the secretary does not act in granting development
rights in time, development can continue anyway.
With the recent reputation of political “appointees,” or to use a
blossoming term thrown about newspapers nationwide, “cronies,” to
staff federal positions (take former head of FEMA Michael Brown, House Majority
Leader Tom Delay who faces indictment, for example), I just don’t trust
their interests regarding us — the public. Who knows, they may pick people
like Michael Crichton, whose book “State of Fear” was honored as
scientific fact at a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research earlier this year.
You remember Michael Crichton, right? He wrote other scholarly works widely accepted
among the scientific community and academia like “Sphere,” “Jurassic
Park” and the “The Lost World.”
Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), is another possible “expert” an industry
dominated administration may place on the panel. Inhofe chairs the Environment
and Public Works Committee and believes wholeheartedly that global warming is
a “hoax.” With the current trend of political appointees given federal
positions of power, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these two on a scientific
panel burdened with the responsibility of deciding how much of our natural environment
we can discard.
I am not a tree-hugger. I surf in our local waters and I notice that even the
beach is on the threshold of extinction. The Surfside community pays an extra
membership fee just to keep the sand visible from their windows. Sewage spills
onto the sea floor a couple of miles off the pier at Huntington Beach, and for
a long time it was common knowledge that the only reason Seal Beach broke was
because of the artificial reef made from drowned shopping carts and lost fishing
tackle. I backpack through the Sierras every summer and snowboard in June in
Mammoth once the snows starts.
You can find me on Lake Havasu on a wakeboard, keg or canoe. I am part of the
biotic community. I get the hell out of this city madness when I can. I cannot
stand Los Angeles traffic, and reality TV isn’t doing it for me like it
used to. I am glad there is still wilderness I can escape to. But these areas
are shrinking.
Our reliance on fossil fuels tells the government we are OK with decisions to
overhaul the Endangered Species Act. If the government de-lists an endangered
species habitat and awards a building contract to private landowners, that wilderness
is lost. We have to decide, as we enter an era of catastrophic natural disasters
linked to global warming, how we value the purity and health of our wilderness.
We have to be conscious of the decisions government makes regarding the things
we value.
I leave you with Aldo Leopold, one of the visionary founders of the Wilderness
society and initiator of Gila National Forrest, the first Forest wilderness Area
in the United States.
“
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty
of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
Lee Underwood is in the English education credential program.
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