I don't see the proposed legislation as "throwing a bone to the universities," although their input would be welcomed, I'm sure, if I read the language of the bills correctly.
Some suggestions had to do with land-owner co-operation.
William Rex Amack, Director Nebraska Game and Parks Commission mentioned a program of the USFWS, quote, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service works with private landowners in the conservation and recovery of species by providing technical assistance and through Asafe harbor@ agreements. A safe harbor agreement assures landowners that improving habitat for species will not restrict land-use options on their land in the future. The key to recovery is the cooperation of many partners working together to develop innovative conservation and management actions that benefit the species, while accommodating socioeconomic goals."
There was a wealth of information and viewpoints presented at the March 20th meeting of the House Resource Committee, that could be incorporated into the bills.
Farmers, when I was a kid, used to leave a row or two on the end or side of their fields for the local habit. Rabbits, deer, pheasants, foxes, etc. were common on every farm and ranch because of the attitude of the country living folks. They enjoyed watching the wildlife on their property.
Along comes the EPA and ESA, the farmers starting cutting and burning the ditches, cutting every bit of possible growth out of their fields. WHY ? Because they are terrified that the EPA or ESA is going to come along and say, "You have this endangered <>snake<>bug<>animal<>turtle<> living on your property and we are ordering that you do not use fertilizer or grow crop in this 160 acre field!
Common sense went out the window when the UN started these agencies!
The greater wrong would be to do nothing to amend the ESA.
I see. The tyranny of the urgent justifies the means. Really? After nearly thirty years?
Those species, even those that are migratory, are integral to processes that are all that constitutes private property. My web-site contains a philosophical proof of that. It may be just what the SCOTUS is looking for. Any civic claim to represent the interests of endangered species is no more than an expressed claim on the part of a civic agent to control the use of private property in the interest of the politically dominant. In fact, to socialize a species is to place its welfare at the hands of an agent that derives its income only as long as the species is in trouble. That is in contradiction of the terms of the treaties that are the authority for the ESA. I’ll bet you can’t wait for that constitutional challenge.
The testimony I read from the February 16 Resource Committee meeting had many helpful insights form a variety of people. There were good points brought to light that could be incorporated into HR 2829 and HR 3705.
Ah the ol “consensus” pitch from those invited to comment. Very smooth. We see that one all over, except they call themselves democrats, socialists, and globalists... Your assumption is that the claim of agency for rare and endangered species are the legitimately the exclusive province of government, a civic monopoly. So do all the supplicants you invite. My intent is to blow that claim out of the water entirely. Such control is hardly constitutional as managing species habitat is a perfectly reasonable business, a premise co-linear within both the Convention on Nature Protection or CITES. After presenting the thesis, later chapters in the book demonstrate how sophisticated are its capabilities. Would you like to know how to blow those treaties out of the water instead of “reforming” the ESA into concrete? Would you like to know how property owners can get standing in those sweetheart suits between agencies and NGOs? I don’t suppose you know that the Convention on Nature Protection presumes to control all land and all species in the United States without any limits to the commitment? If you don’t, take a gander at the preamble and then Article V. I have the Congressional Record on that one. Cordell Hull lied to the Senate about the scope of that part of the Convention. No recorded vote either.
I don't see the proposed legislation as "throwing a bone to the universities," although their input would be welcomed, I'm sure, if I read the language of the bills correctly.
Then you are either blind, ignorant, or dishonest; take your pick. The sole power to confer peerage is strictly controlled by a university oligopoly nearly totally dependent upon Federal funding or tax-exempt foundations that are using the power to control grant funding of “scientific” research to control the value of natural resources, commodities, real estate, imported goods, or even as tools of foreign policy to prop up foreign loans. That is a systemic conflict of interest with those of the species and American property owners. Heck, these people even manipulate currencies as part of this game.
William Rex Amack, Director Nebraska Game and Parks Commission mentioned a program of the USFWS, quote, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service works with private landowners in the conservation and recovery of species by providing technical assistance and through safe harbor agreements. A safe harbor agreement assures landowners that improving habitat for species will not restrict land-use options on their land in the future. The key to recovery is the cooperation of many partners working together to develop innovative conservation and management actions that benefit the species, while accommodating socioeconomic goals."
The assumption is, of course, that the USFWS is a competent agent, that they legitimately can determine what is acceptable accommodation, or that they don’t serve the select interests of both themselves and large campaign donors to control resource market as a system of political favors. The very idea that centralized planning systems are capable of doing this job from Washington is bizarre, much less that it is optimal. It’s too corrupt to do it even if its motives were pure. I assure you they are not because USFWS operates within a motivational architecture that is structurally adverse to the interests of species or private property owners. Under my free-market management method those interests are co-aligned and all the same principles that make our free market industries flourish then come to fore.
There was a wealth of information and viewpoints presented at the March 20th meeting of the House Resource Committee, that could be incorporated into the bills.
The usual suspects I am certain. I didn’t get a plane ticket. What do you bet if I showed up they would have let me testify?
Some suggestions had to do with land-owner co-operation.
This is the most damning thing you wrote, and I am sure that you can’t see it. Co-operation? You assume the legitimacy of the entire process. It is so ingrained that you scoff at the very idea of anything different as if I don't know what's going on in your little club. Sir, it’s the landowners’ property to control. The very act of extending a civic claim to control those assets is destructive to the economic worth of the species as the basis for profitable management services, caring for species integral to maintaining a functioning ecosystem so that urban populations can take advantage of proximity. It has gone so far that you can’t even conceive of such a thing. You are so used to civic control it’s no wonder I spend 80% of my time explaining to people how a free market in risk management works.
First the ESA, was distorted significantly, when environmentalists destroyed the true meaning of species. That is the biggest problem that should be fixed by legislation. Specifically, the sockeye salmon in the can on the grocery shelf and the sockeye salmon in the upper reaches of the Snake River are both "Sockeye Salmon." Nope, according to environmentalists, each major river basin because of genetic adeptation has its own separate subspecies that needs to be separately protected. Similarly, the red squirrels from the top of the mountain are a different species from the red ground squires at the base of a certain mountain in the Western US and thus, development at the top of the mountain would threaten the habitat of the "top of mountain red ground squirrel."
All of the above is junk science. If in a Biology 101 Course in college, I had tried to dance such a tale on the definition of species, I would have properly flunked. It is only because of politically motivated legal interpretations that we have a new improved definition of species, not contemplated by those that wrote the law. This problem needs to be addressed by Congress.
Before, I leave this let me point out that exteme interpretation, which is what the environmentalists really are after - no growth & no development. If we went back in time 300 years and said that the bears, deer, and fish that were moving through what is now part of most major US cities were "unique species that needed to be protected," and there was an ESA, today all of those major cities would not exist, because development would have been stopped to keep the deer, bear, and fish. Actually, the ESA the way it is enforced today would try to have buildings destroyed and forest habitat planted where the building were, just to create a potential habitat that some might use in the hopes of trying to increase the population of the critters in the middle of the city.
Now for my second problem with what is proposed, modeling. In the early 1970's in graduate engineering school, I had a research traineeship and part of my assignment was to take the Club of Rome and the subsequent Jay Forester, Limits to Growth, Dynamo Computer simulation of how the world would end between 2005 and 2020 due to a combination of "over population, exhaustion of natural resources, and pollution."
I translated the Dynamo computer language into another simulation computer language and benchmarked the results. Then I created a multiple world model, i.e. developed economy (US, Europe & USSR) world, a sort of up & coming world, and a backwater world. I took limited UN data on the resources, populations, birthrates, death rates, capital, and plugged them into the models.
What I learned from the experience was that any model that attempts to forecast anything based on an implicit assumption of exponential growth and concludes that something gets so large as to cause a catastrophy, is just so much garbage. Modeling is fine, in my profession, I do lots of modeling. Common sense in the application of models and in the interpretation of their results is almost non-existent in academic circles. Most modelers I know have a great understanding of statistics and ways of twisting data to get "expected results." Most are also under extreme pressure to find something that is "interesting enough" to get the attention of professional journal editors (who want to sell journals or membership in professional societies) who will then figure out a peer review team to get the publicity generating article published. I suggest that if the academic community looked into the similarity between liberal media journalists and liberal journal editors it might find a strong overlap in agenda's. As such, shoving key aspects of ESA evaluation over to universities, isn't going to solve the real problems with the ESA.
And as to these agreements between land owners and various entities...conservation easements.....when we had a ranch in Montana, they tried pushing these conservations easments onto us, too.....and when you got down into the neat little details, you found out if your barn burned down, you could replace--so it looked and was exactly as it was when you signed the easement....ditto fences, yada yada yada.
I do not trust fedgov employees to do the right thing.....talking about computer models--computers are only as good as the garbage that is put in them.
It isn't just the lynx story that makes one leery of fedgov employees....what about the IRS giving slavery credits?
And as to Congress writing good bills....yeah, right....NOT.....they can put all they want in them, after the hearings--things which would thrill you to death--and then when they get to the floor, the heart is ripped out....or when it goes to the other side, it is ripped out....and then the bastards get together for one of their special committees and they can re-write the whole thing--I know, I know....they're not supposed to--but hell, they aren't suppposed to rip the Constitution apart, either....but they do....anyhow.....once they have their rewritten bill each chamber votes it up or down.
As stoopid as most legislators are, they don't bother to read the bill....they just think "environment"--good and vote for it.
When you have representatives/senators willing to vote that the fedgov can take a third of your land before it qualifies as affecting your value and therefore entitling you to some sort of payment....and all in the name of the environment, mind you.......worry bout the LIBERTY TREE!