The House Natural Resources Committee was back at it last week, holding a hearing on the current state of wildlife. The subcommittee wanted to register their thoughts and opposition about the proposed update to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The tone of the committee was dramatic; ever since the Democrat majority gained control, the separation of political parties couldn’t be more stark. The committee secured testimony from five folks including Jamie Rappaport Clark, CEO of the Defenders of Wildlife; Dan Ashe, former head of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Valerie Covey, Williamson County, TX commissioner; Christy Plumer with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; and Oregon’s Union County Cattlemen President, Rodger Huffman.
Naturally, the committee took a pro-ESA stance and the argument was that we need to spend more money to recover species, use more technology, and become creative in our thinking. For the most part, they conveyed very vague positions that the federal government should do more. We’re in the midst of our sixth mass extinction crisis, according to Defenders of Wildlife. Then there were simply the Trump haters.
The minority side was trying to balance land and resource development. They claimed that the ESA in its current form is too limiting and costly for land development, and working around some of the listed species has become overbearing.
Energy development was responsible for mass extinction, whether it be green energy or hydrocarbons. It’s ironic to me that while the Democrats are pushing the Green New Deal, the fact is that new renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are responsible for a multitude of migratory bird takings, further threatening species. But oil and gas development are the reason for many of the listed species.
Listening to these folks bicker back and forth forces you to realize that they will never get anything done. It’s a battle between human inhabitants of the earth and wildlife. The idea that we’re going to have nine billion people inhabiting Earth by 2050 forces some of these people into an existential thought processes: Do we limit the human population for biodiversity sake? Some of these folks seem to think so.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) said that the greatest species loss is because a billion people live in subsistence areas and rely on eating wildlife and native plants to survive. And the answer to that problem is high yield agriculture to feed them. He is big on water development and energy development to produce an abundance of food.
He also pointed out that the U.S. was building ag, energy, and transportation infrastructure at a fairly rapid pace until Congress passed environmental laws in the 1970s, such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, ESA and a host of other laws to limit resource development for the country.
Most of the majority testimony was from the bleeding-heart camp. Former USFW chief Ashe said that he is having his first grandchild soon and that he wants her to experience the glory of our public lands and our nation’s wildlife. For gosh sakes, everyone wants biodiversity and to protect wildlife, but the nation also needs to move forward developing our resources to take care of the expansion of the human population. In a reasonable way. How many times have you seen a $10 million resource development project turn into a $20 million project because of environmental litigation? It happens daily.
The big question for these guys is how are we going to develop society responsibly? It’s certainly not an either/or situation as far as wildlife protection. We all know that the one-size-fits-all, top-down regulations made in Washington don’t work.
All conservation is done at the local level. The federal government can throw money at a problem, which they don’t have, but the solutions are deployed at the local level. The minority witnesses made that very clear.
Unfortunately, it’s politics as usual. A House committee could set a new example of how to compromise and come to workable solutions that would please both sides of the debate. This particular committee is very important to Western agriculture. We could use more water storage and energy in the West and these folks need to understand who the real land stewards are. The ranchers on federal lands deserve a lot of credit for abundant wildlife populations. — PETE CROW
