Endangered Species Act critic finds himself in crosshairs(rights of property owners)

Endangered Species Act critic finds himself in crosshairs By ERICA WERNER Associated Press writer Sunday, March 26, 2006

TRACY, Calif. -- Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo likes animals, just as long as obscure species aren't dictating what happens to the land.

Bidding for his 12th term in Congress, the cowboy-booted Pombo, a Californian who raises cattle on the family ranch, wants to rewrite the 1973 Endangered Species Act to dramatically expand the rights of property owners. And as chairman of the House Resources Committee, he is closing in on that longtime goal.

That has made him a prime target for environmentalists in this election year. Coupled with ethical questions, including his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the conservative Pombo finds the going a bit tougher in a district that has added a few more liberals since the 2000 census.

"The easiest thing in the world is for an incumbent congressman to get re-elected if you don't do anything," the 45-year-old Pombo said in the kitchen of his ranch on sloping Central California farmland. "But I figure I'm here for a reason -- that's to get things done."

Pombo remains popular in the agricultural sections of his district, which straddles the San Joaquin Valley and the San Francisco Bay area, including his hometown of Tracy, where signs for his uncle's real estate firm dot rural roads.

"He comes from a good family, a long, longtime Tracy family," said Linda Alegre, who works at a menswear store in the fast-growing exurb's faded downtown. "The Democrats want to get rid of him because he's gotten too strong."

In 2004, Pombo won with 61 percent of the vote in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats. But in the upscale towns recently added to his district, Pombo's country style is an odd fit even after he trimmed his mustache and abandoned the cowboy hat he used to wear in his official congressional photo.

"He looks like a hick to me," said Claudia Hess, a gallery director in Pleasanton and a Republican who hasn't decided how to vote in November.

Though political analysts consider an upset by one of the little-known Democratic contenders -- engineer Jerry McNerney or Steve Filson, a Navy veteran and airline pilot -- a long shot, the national party is spending time and money here, including plans to purchase billboard space to advertise an anti-Pombo Web site, www.dirtydickpombo.com.

Complicating matters is a Republican primary challenger -- former Rep. Pete McCloskey, a moderate and an original author of the Endangered Species Act. McCloskey moved into the district after failing to recruit another Republican to run.

"He's been there too long, and power has corrupted him," McCloskey said of Pombo.

Environmentalists angered by his stance on endangered species, his proposals to sell public lands and support for oil drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, promise to spend plenty to unseat Pombo,

"Getting rid of him would be the best thing politically that could happen to us in the November election," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

Pombo's quest to rewrite the species act, a position that has pitted him against moderates in his own party, had its genesis in an earlier fight.

In the early 1980s, he was upset when the presence of the endangered San Joaquin kit fox contributed to the decision to stop development of a proposed town outside Tracy. After spending just two years on the Tracy City Council from 1990-92, Pombo won a congressional seat vowing to revise the legislation.

He pushed a bill through the House last year after years of trying and despite an outcry from environmentalists. The measure would require the government to compensate property owners if species protections thwart development plans and would block designation of "critical habitat" where development is limited.

A Senate committee is considering writing its own version. It remains unclear whether any final legislation will reach the White House and President Bush.

"Coming from my perspective, the bottom line is what landowners want is certainty," said Pombo, who argued that opponents "were able to use an endangered species that no one had ever seen or heard of in order to stop that project from going forward."

He interceded on behalf of one of Abramoff's tribal clients, the Mashpee Wampanoag, that sought federal recognition and donated thousands of dollars to him after he met with Interior Department officials. Pombo, who has donated to charity the $7,000 he got directly from Abramoff, said tribes shouldn't have to wait years for federal recognition and his advocacy was unrelated to Abramoff, whom he says he barely knew, or to donations he received.

Pombo also has been criticized for billing taxpayers $5,000 to rent a recreational vehicle to tour national parks and for the unusual arrangement under which his top committee aide lives in California and bills for frequent travel to Washington.

Growing up in a large Portuguese ranching family, Pombo says his immigrant grandfather taught him to prize land ownership above almost anything. His pride of ownership is evident as he points out cows, sheep and the barn he just built on the ranch he shares with his wife and three children. His parents and brothers live next door.

"These guys that claim to be moderate, they're not moderate. They just can't make up their mind what they believe in," Pombo said. "There's got to be something that you're willing to lose your election over."

Evangelicals, Scientists, Environmentalists Fight for Endangered Species Act

Saturday, Mar. 11, 2006 Posted: 7:26:22AM EST

As the Senate prepares to take up revisions to the Endangered Species Act this month, evangelicals, scientists, environmentalists, and environmental-evangelical-scientists launched a nationwide effort to raise awareness among their supporters about the threat to the landmark law and to urge policymakers to preserve scientific protections in the act.

The Noah Alliance, an interfaith group of Evangelical Christian, Protestant and Jews, began running about $200,000 of advertisements on hundreds of radio, print and television media since Mar. 8. Organizers hope the ads, which will run through Mar. 13, will serve to alert people of faith to the potential dismantling of the Endangered Species Act – legislation they call “America’s modern-day ark to save God’s creatures.”

“As Evangelical Christians in our time, we see a most profound threat to God's creation in the destruction of endangered species and their God-given habitat,” said Calvin DeWitt, environmental professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists. “We want the public to see the risk we face if Congress weakens the Endangered Species Act.”

The Academy, which includes nearly 70 Evangelical scholars from Baptist, Pentecostal, Reformed, and other churches and from 35 Christian colleges and universities in 19 states, is one of several faith-based groups that formed Noah’s Alliance last year specifically to bring a religious voice in the movement to protect endangered species.

According to Suellen Lowry, Program Director for Noah Alliance, many of the Alliance members also work in other green-evangelical movements, such as the newly launched Evangelical Climate Initiative that brought together over 80 influential evangelicals for the global warming cause.

“In the religious community, people work together informally,” explained Lowry. “There isn’t a formal connection, but many people who are involved in the Noah Alliance are also involved in the Climate Initiative.

“The theological underpinnings are quite similar,” she added. “It all goes together to protect God’s natural world.”

The Noah Alliance television and radio spots focus on the Biblical basis for engagement and call on people of faith to defend the Act because “God calls on us to care for all creatures.”

The House passed an Endangered Species Act rewrite last year that many environmentalists viewed as extreme. Supporters of the Act are working to ensure that the legislation expected soon from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be an improvement.

Meanwhile, in a separate move, nearly 6,000 biologists from around the country signed a letter Wednesday urging senators to preserve the Endangered Species Act.

Unconstitutional origins of the Endangered Species Act

By redefining Article 6 of the US Constitution, all globlists now have to do is ratify international treaties that, in total, subvert the Constitution and put all power into their hands. As a consequence, Americans are systematically coming under the control of international law and the United Nations, and flies and suckerfish have more legal rights than people.

To most American citizens the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and many other environmental laws are a noble effort to save species from extinction, and to protect the environment from reckless destruction by man. The human tragedy caused by the ESA and other environmental laws is rarely reported, hence most Americans also do not realize that hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens, primarily in rural areas, are needlessly being stripped of their livelihoods and decimated economically by these laws as our government uses them to nationalize their property.
The Endangered Species Act of 1973, the granddaddy of all these anti-human US laws, derives its authority and power from five international treaties, the most prominent being the Western Convention. Section 2, paragraph (4) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 states; "the United States has pledged itself as a sovereign state in the international community to conserve to the extent practicable the various species of fish or wildlife and plants facing extinction, pursuant to-

A. migratory bird treaties with Canada and Mexico;
B. the Migratory and Endangered Bird Treaty with Japan;
C. the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere;
D. the International Convention for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries;
E. the International Convention for the High Seas Fisheries of the North Pacific Ocean;
F. the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; and
G. other international agreements; and...
The ESA even extols the fact that it cedes sovereignty to the international community by saying its purpose is to "develop and maintain conservation programs which meet national and international standards." These in turn are "key to meeting the Nation's international commitments." (Bold and italics added for emphasis)

The Western Convention and the ESA

Even if they did not know of its existence, most Americans who live in rural America will recognize with alarm some of the key language in The Western Convention because they have witnessed it being applied in their area through the ESA. The goal of The Western Convention is to "protect and preserve in their natural habitat representatives of all species and genera of their native flora and fauna...in sufficient numbers and over areas extensive enough to assure them from becoming extinct through any agency within man's control.... (Bolding and italics added for emphasis)

Some citizens have even experienced the ESA horror as it has stripped them personally of their right to use their own land. Under the ESA, private property can condemned by the federal government to create the habitat needed, or possibly could be needed, by an endangered fly, sucker fish or beetle, as well as more glamorous species like the bald eagle.

The Western Convention also provides for the establishment and total protection of National Parks, National Reserves, Nature Monuments and Wilderness Reserves. Within these protected areas, Section 4 of the Western Convention requires the host nation, "to the maximum extent prudent and determinable – shall... designate any habitat of such species which is then considered to be critical habitat." Not surprisingly, in language identical to the Western Convention, Section 4 of the ESA states, "to the maximum extent prudent and determinable–shall...designate any habitat of such species which is then considered to be critical habitat." (Bold and italics added for emphasis)

According to Article VIII of the Western Convention, all endangered species "shall be protected as completely as possible, and their hunting, killing, capturing, or taking, shall be allowed only with the permission of the appropriate government authorities in the country." Not surprisingly, the concept of full protection, critical habitat and takings is also found in the ESA. Under Section 9 of the ESA, it is unlawful to "take any" endangered "species within the United States or the territorial sea of States," or "take any such species upon the high seas."

If only National Parks, Reserves, Monuments and wilderness areas received this kind of protection, the treaty would accomplish what most Americans desire. But, it goes far beyond protecting these political designations. Article V also includes " the protection and preservation of flora and fauna within their (the nation's) national boundaries but not included in the national parks, national reserves, nature monuments, or strict wilderness reserves.... (bold and italics added for emphasis)

Hence all land, public and private is under the jurisdiction of this UN treaty through the ESA.

The usurpation of the US Constitution

The UN-administered Western Convention has provided the hammer for denying landowners of their property rights in the US by superceding the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution:

....No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (bold and italics added for emphasis)

Most if not all of US environmental natural resource laws have their authority derived from Article VI of the US Constitution, not Article I that defines the eighteen enumerated powers of Congress. Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states:

Congress shall have power to:

Collect Taxes and Duties
Borrow Money
Regulate Commerce
Naturalize Citizens
Coin Money
Punishment of Counterfeiting
Build Post Offices & Post Roads
Promote Inventions
Constitute Lower Courts
Punish High Seas Offences
Declare War
Raise an Army
Provide a Navy
Make Rules for Military
Call Militia and Suppress Insurrections & Invasions
Organize and Arm Militia
District of Columbia
To Make All Laws for Above Powers, and Powers Vested by the Constitution

According to the US Constitution, Congress has no power to legislate anything other than in the eighteen areas listed above, and none of those allow Congress to pass environmental law, except number 18, which is defined in Article VI, Clause 2:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. (Bold and italics added for emphasis)

As it was originally written, the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. The laws of the United States had to be "in pursuance thereof," or subservient to the Constitution. Likewise, treaties could only be made "under the Authority of the United States." Since the authority of the United States comes from the sovereign people who delegated it to the US Constitution, treaties also had to be subservient to it.

Although the founders thought it obvious and therefore did not include it in the original US Constitution, the sovereignty of the people was spelled out in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. For instance, Amendment IX states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Just to make sure future courts understood this, Amendment X states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. It was the people's ironclad contract that they would never become serfs to the state. (Bold and italics added for emphasis)

Needless to say, the US Constitution stopped the globalists from implementing their one-world plan dead in their tracts. They knew that something had to be done to override the sovereignty of the individual. In the case of property rights and natural resources, international treaties were used. The Constitution began to be reinterpreted in the case Missouri vs. Holland 252 U.S. 416, 40 S. Ct. 3822, 64 L.Ed 641 (1920). In that decision the US Supreme Court held that the federal government may preempt state control over wildlife under federal legislation implementing the Migratory Bird Treaty. By putting liberal and corrupt judges into lower courts and the Supreme Court, Article 6.2 of the Constitution was gradually reinterpreted to mean:

...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land...

Such an interpretation fits perfectly within the globalist’s agenda. By redefining Article 6 of the US Constitution, all globlists now have to do is ratify international treaties that, in total, subvert the Constitution and put all power into their hands. As a consequence, Americans are systematically coming under the control of international law and the United Nations, and flies and suckerfish have more legal rights than people. "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:22-23)

"Calvin DeWitt, environmental professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists", joined by some 6,000 other recipients of government funding prove their Leftism biases and illustrate the danger they pose to the republic. A few of those dangers are detailed as follows.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS. 'Environmental' departments are hard core socialists because government ownership of land provides management grants for the professors and a plethora of jobs for their students.

SEDITION/TREASON' As America is based upon private ownership and control of land, to advocate converting America to a land of government ownership and/or control of land is to destroy the basis of America. ESA is the tool de jure in socializing America. University of Wisconsin' is known as a bastion of academic commies and/or fellow travelers.

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS. From his arrogant use of the royal 'we' to his deceptively deficient theology, this is a statement full of errors - "we see a most profound threat to God's creation in the destruction of endangered species and their God-given habitat,”

This soi dissant Christian "theologian" doesn't even remember that G*d gave man dominion over the earth and all living things. His agenda now clearly dominates his mentation and has impaired his professional responsibilities to the academic community and his theological responsibilities to Christians.

Deliberate disingenuousness is not acceptable in either science or theology. Used to be that way, that is, before most faculty became Marxism impaired.

6,000 CASES OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST. "nearly 6,000 biologists from around the country signed a letter Wednesday urging senators to preserve the Endangered Species Act." illustrates how quickly those who benefit from socializing America can respond when their personal feeding frenzy in the Federal Grant Trough is threatened.

Newt Gingrich was correct when he said that we had to "defund the Left". This professor/theologian is a good example of a Leftist funded by government. The other 6,000 "academics" are similar cases. All of 'em are proving that advanced degrees are no inhibition to development of a welfare mentality, complete with delusions of both grandeur and entitlement.

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