By ALG Staff
The once well intentioned Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been hijacked by environmental radicals and the far left to impose an agenda rather than save animals, the Executive Director of the House Western Caucus, Jeff Smalls, is warning and a bill by U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) would change that.
“This bill requires the science to be published on the internet so it can be available to the public. It can be peer reviewed. And it also requires agencies no longer just ignore states, tribal governments, and local governments. That has been a big problem that we have seen in the past,” Small explained in an interview on Conservative Commandos with Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning.
The interview discussed the modernization of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and how McClintock’s bill would help return the Fish and Wildlife Service to sound science.
Environmental regulations have been based on science which has not been peer reviewed or available to the public. One of the Western Caucus’s missions has been to change this through the legislation offered by McClintock.
Currently, federal environmental regulators operate with little to no discussion with local and state governments, this often produced ineffective policy that hinders local industries. State governments should have the best knowledge of how policy will impact their activity, yet federal regulators cut them out of the equation.
Manning noted in the interview, “[The Obama Administration] ignored what the people who actually had a stake in what the outcomes were said related to the science and the species and essentially imposed top down solutions which didn’t have bringing the species back as a top priority but instead had changing the development and making it so people couldn’t actually coexist with the species in many, many areas.”
Smalls also noted how the Western Caucus was successful in overturning a policy which would have eliminated mining ability in over 10 million acres of land to protect a bird which is not actually endangered. Now, the Caucus is working with the Trump Administration to remove additional regulations that limit land use.
In July, Manning spoke at the Western Caucus on the issue and noted, “The House Western Caucus is to be applauded for reigniting this effort to reform the ESA so that there is a balance between the economic and environmental needs of our nation. It is particularly important that sound science with full transparency be employed in reaching and reviewing any findings under the Act as called for by Representative McClintock’s HR 3608… Hopefully due to today’s activities, the reform effort will lead to sound, transparent and replicable science with frequent and regular reviews being required before knee-jerk actions destroy other industries and communities. Ending forever the ability of fundraising driven environmental hysteria to destroy people’s way of life, with the actual protection and recovery of the threatened or endangered species being a secondary concern.”
To view the full interview between Smalls and Manning check out the Conservative Commandos Radio Show.
