Environmental Outlook: Endangered Species Act
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-03/environmental-outlook-endangered-species-act
A provision attached to Congress’ recent budget deal removed some wolves from the Endangered Species list. The gray wolf in the Northern Rockies became the first animal ever taken off of the endangered species list through legislation, rather than scientific review. Critics of The Endangered Species Act cheered the move, but some environmentalists worry it sets a dangerous precedent. When President Nixon signed the act into law in 1973, it had widespread, bipartisan support. But it's never been without controversy. As part of our Environmental Outlook series, a look at the new debate over The Endangered Species Act.
Guests
Rodger Schlickeisen
president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife
Jonathan Adler
professor of law at Case Western Reserve University
Andrew Revkin
writes the Dot Earth blog for The New York Times and is the Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University
Rep. Steve Pearce
Republican representative from New Mexico
Comments
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WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IS WHY are you having Rodger Schlickeisen president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife as your guest when he was the first and most key supposed animal rights activist from one of the formerly most staunch support environmental groups in the world to sign the rider that essentially will lead to the death of thousands of wolves in the Northwest ?? I respect the few who did NOT sign away the wolves and will NEVER again contribute to DOW !!
Appropriation riders under the ESA is nothing new nor unique.
For example, I would be interested in hearing today's quests comment on the prior 111th Congress using an indentical appropriation rider process to repeal regulatory reforms to the ESA's consultation permitting program.
These regulations represented the first regulatory reforms to the ESA main permitting program since the ESA consultation program was put in place by Congress back in 1986.
The rider was contained in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriation Act and expressly allowed the Secretaries of the Department of Interior and Department of Commerce to withdraw these legally issued regulations without taking public comment. Which this Administration did on May 4, 2009 with a notice in the Federal Register.
While I do not expect all of today's guests to support those regulatory reforms to ESA's consultation program issued by the prior Administration, I would be interested to hear their views on the use of the appropriation riders to repeal legally issued rules.
I would also be interested to know if any of today's guests supported this prior use of appropriation riders?
Defenders vociferously opposed the wolf rider until the bitter end. Responsibility lies with members of Congress and an administration that allowed the provision to be attached to the budget bill, not those conservation groups that did everything they could to try to stop it.
The return of the gray wolf has been an incredible success because of dedicated efforts by Defenders and others who helped bring wolves back to the West. And those groups continue their fight today to protect all of America's imperiled wildlife.
In my opinion, the entire process surrounding ESA is so convoluted now that it is far from doing what the original authors of the ESA envisioned.
It is probably due for a revision but everyone on either side of the issue is afraid of what we will end up with.
In response to the comment on putting people's jobs after species protection....people have lost contact with the real world and do not realize how dependent we are on the natural system. If we are self-interested...we would realize how intimately entwined with are with the natural world. If ecological collapse occurs, we won't be living the types of lives we are currently enjoying.
I won't pretend to know much about this, but it sounds like it changed the law so that the wolf isn't categorized "Endangered" everywhere but only in certain regions. Using the same type of thinking, could new species - not currently listed as "Endangered" - be listed as "Endangered" in certain regions?
I usually love this show, and I hate to pile on with the republicans, but this show looking at Wolves and the Endangered Species Act is not a balanced one. I just moved from Montana where many people have a much different view of the wolves than the two experts Ms. Rehm has on air. The counterpoint to the in studio experts did not have anything to say about wolves, and was not on air long enough to really engage the subject or defend his statements.
I hope these comments are read after or during the show. I'm totally in agreement with the last caller. This is a moral not a budgetary issue.
As the species that has brought about extinction of so many other species has an imperative to save as many as possile also the comment about the ecological balance in the farmers ending up feeding deers that the wolves would feed on.
I would like to know where the money came from to fight this fight.
If the ranchers are so worried about their precious cows, then do they pay the government a fair price for these cows to graze (on federal land) where there are wolves?
Culling is a natural course of nature. Leave the wolves alone.
Pearce epitomizes the "Right's" approach to the environment and it stewardship: we're all for it, provided it has a zero-effect on the bottom line of any commercial activity (or our personal convenience). And so, we continue to move toward the day when what passes for wildlife will be that on display at zoos and theme parks, and for the natural world, museums.
Put another way, it was not long after the close of the second world war that a group gathered in the upper Mojave Desert to consider issues confronting the world. Among others in attendance were Bertrand Russell and Edmond Jaeger, the dean of American desert naturalists.
Around the campfire one evening the topic under consideration was Right and Wrong. After listening to his distinguished associates for a time, Jaeger turned to Russel, his white wispy hair outlined by the fire and the smoke from his pipe, and said, "The environment, since it cannot run away nor defend itself, must be protected. And THAT, sir, is the difference between what is Right and what is Wrong."
This may be the most powerful statement ever uttered on absolute morality, and it is a tragedy that its meaning completely escapes so many for whom actual morality is in fact nothing more than a weapon and a punchline.
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