Tea Party Bill Would Gut Endangered Species Act

I came across this newspiece, which seems very disturbing if passed.

Tea Party senators introduced a bill last week that would effectively end the protection of most endangered species in the U.S. by gutting some of the most important provisions of the Endangered Species Act. Senate Bill 1731, introduced by Tea Party members Sen. Paul (R-KY), Sen. Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Heller (R-NV) would end protections for most of the species that are currently protected by the act and make it virtually impossible to protect new species under the law. It would also eliminate protection for habitat that’s critical to the survival of rare and struggling animals and plants around the country.
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Despite this successful track record, the bill’s most extreme provision would require that every five years all protected species be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species, eliminating all legal protections. No matter how close to extinction they might be, every listed species would then have to wait until Congress passed a joint resolution renewing their protections under the act for another five years. Five years later, this process would start over again, eliminating all protections until Congress passed another joint resolution.
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The bill would eliminate all protections for the critical habitat of endangered species and allow state governments to effectively veto any conservation measures designed to protect an imperiled species within their respective state. Meanwhile federal wildlife agencies would need to complete onerous accounting reports to estimate the costs of protecting endangered species rather than completing tangible, on-the-ground conservation activities to protect species and the places they live.

Source: ecowatch.com...

In the crazy bill introduction category, Sens. Paul (R-KY), Lee (R-UT) and Heller (R-NV) and Rep. Amodei (R-NV) introduced companion bills entitled the “Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act” (H.R. 3533; S. 1731), which give complete control over endangered species management to states – regardless of whether such states actually want to do what’s best for imperiled species or are equipped to do so. Additionally, it would require the consent of governors and passage of a joint resolution by Congress to list new species, leaving protections to politics—not science. And it would delist species after five years, regardless of whether they have recovered.

Source: switchboard.nrdc.org...
Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act ( H.R.3533 ; S.1731)

I did not find much other sources on the matter, although the bills exist and it seems incredibly wrong. This gives politicians the power of eliminating entire species and in majority of cases they know next to nothing about ecosystems and populations of different species. Such critical management should be done by scientists, not politicians, otherwise many species are going to extinct, simply because someone wanted additional profit or simply did not know anything about the consequences of their actions, while voting. Very disturbing bill, politicians should have no say on matters like this.

It seems reasonable for the status to be renewed every 5 years WHILE protection lasts until the status is looked at. This bill, if true, is horrible.

Ironic...
The Tea Party wanting to change an existing law to add MORE GOVERNMENT INTRUSION required (I.e. the approval of the governor as well as examing the list every five years). No surprise. A politician is a politician no matter what follows their name for party affiliation. Smoke and mirrors to give people something to argue about with their families over Thanksgiving dinner...if they are lucky enough to not be working to put food on the table the other 364 days a year.

Wasting our time and money, they need to pass a g@$& d$)$&@ budget.

reply to post by Cabin


It's VERY disturbing.
Hopefully the Tea Party will become extinct very soon. These people are insane, irresponsible, stupid, and brainwashed. The whole lot of them.

Let's not protect their habitat anymore...don't feed, fertilize, or legitimize them. They're invasive and toxic and need to be uprooted.


Nutjobs. Destructive/counterproductive nutjobs.

reply to post by wildtimes


The Tea Party is an endangered species.

It's been brought to the brink of extinction by the puppets controlling it (i.e. Koch brothers, Big Business, Big Pharma, and lots of other Bigs), by overreaching its natural territory, and by the wild eyed nearsightedness of its most public members.

More breathless leftist hysteria, from the same sort of people who demand row after row of ugly wind turbines placed all over the landscape which actually chop up endangered birds they pretend to care for.

Animal 'rights' activists real goal is to place every animal on the endangered species list for protection from human consumption.

If they manage to get that? I suppose the next effort would be to turn lions and tigers into tofu eating herbivores.