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Let's Gut Endangered Species when no one is looking

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9531112/
The bill would require the government to compensate property owners if steps to protect species thwarted development plans. It also would make political appointees responsible for some scientific determinations and would stop the government from designating “critical habitat,” which limits development.
The bill sets a “dangerous precedent that private individuals must be paid to comply with an environmental law,” said Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, the committee’s top Democrat.

“What’s next? Paying citizens to wear seat belts? ... This bill will not improve species’ ability to recover,”
he said.
A White House statement on Thursday supported the bill. But it noted that payments to private property owners could have a “significant” impact on the budget.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that those payments would run less than $20 million a year. The bill’s opponents predicted a much higher total.
What happened to the fiscally responsible Republicans? You won't pay teachers but this? Its insane.
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
Hooray for the (partial) restoration of private property rights in this coutry! The endangered species act has done far more harm to citizens rights than it has done good where endangered species are concerned.
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
Tenchiro said:
Hooray for the (partial) restoration of private property rights in this coutry! The endangered species act has done far more harm to citizens rights than it has done good where endangered species are concerned.
So should we eliminate all zoning ordinances as well? Or should the government pay you to adhere to them?
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
Changleen said:
That sounds so stupid. I can't believe there is no huge backlash.
You've heard about the mercury pollution "credits", the re-writing of methods in fish population tabulation, the raising of thresholds of groundwater contaminants, exxon execs writing air pollution protocol.........oh nevermind........
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
All that and we still have to have all kinds of studies and reports done to build a few bike trails at Mt.Baldy.
 

ohio

The Fresno Kid
Nov 26, 2001
6,649
23
SF, CA
DRB said:
What happened to the fiscally responsible Republicans? You won't pay teachers but this? Its insane.
Hey, paying teachers would just be throwing money at the problem... as opposed to this which is, uh, throwing money at land developers.
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,335
2,448
Hypernormality
More than wasting Human lives, destroying our planet is even more hideous. The fvckers who came up with these various pieces of legislation really deserve an axe in the face. Absolute Fvckers.
 

Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
Changleen said:
More than wasting Human lives, destroying our planet is even more hideous. The fvckers who came up with these various pieces of legislation really deserve an axe in the face. Absolute Fvckers.
In the long run, we're all dead.

Or, if you prefer: Jesus will come back before it gets really bad.

So, you pick. With the people in power right now, you get the economists view, or the religious view.

I'm surprised E.O. Wilson hasn't taken a swan dive off a cliff...
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,335
2,448
Hypernormality
Silver said:
In the long run, we're all dead.

Or, if you prefer: Jesus will come back before it gets really bad.

So, you pick. With the people in power right now, you get the economists view, or the religious view.

I'm surprised E.O. Wilson hasn't taken a swan dive off a cliff...
I've choosen the NZ view. It is extremely disheartening that a major world power has elected to act in such a pathetic short sighted regressive and damaging way. It's not your fvcking planet, Bush.
 

GumbaFish

Turbo Monkey
Oct 5, 2004
1,747
0
Rochester N.Y.
Tenchiro said:
Hooray for the (partial) restoration of private property rights in this coutry! The endangered species act has done far more harm to citizens rights than it has done good where endangered species are concerned.
And exactly what information are you basing this on, becuase I am guessing probably nothing.
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
DRB said:
So should we eliminate all zoning ordinances as well? Or should the government pay you to adhere to them?
Zoning is a totally different situation. Because even if you buy a house and for some reason the area goes comercially zoned to make way for new development, you still have a valuable piece of property. While that would suck, you would still have the means to relocate elsewhere.

Where the ESA is concerned, if you buy a piece of property to build a house on and it is found that a critter on the list MAY live there, then you are swcrewed. Because not only can you no longer build there but you now own a worthless piece of perperty because nobody else is going to want to buy it either.

Right now there is a girl in Florida or somewhere in the south. She bought a parcel of property to build on. It was found that the scrubjay lives in her neighborhood, and because in that localized region the scrub jay is considered endangered she was not allowed to build.

A couple of interesting tidbits though is that overall the scrubjay is in no way endangered. And on her parcel of land there were no nesting sites of this bird, but because they MIGHT one day nest there she got the shaft.
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
GumbaFish said:
And exactly what information are you basing this on, becuase I am guessing probably nothing.
The fact that no matter what we do as humans the fact remains that one day ever single species that is alive now will no longer exist, including us.

There will be new species, even similiar species of course. But the fact remains that almost every species of plant and animal that has ever existed is now extinct.
 

fluff

Monkey Turbo
Sep 8, 2001
5,673
2
Feeling the lag
Tenchiro said:
The fact that no matter what we do as humans the fact remains that one day ever single species that is alive now will no longer exist, including us.

There will be new species, even similiar species of course. But the fact remains that almost every species of plant and animal that has ever existed is now extinct.
That's unusual logic. Given that every person alive today will die (and much sooner than most species will go extinct) but there will be another person along sometime soon to replace them why do we worry about killing each other?
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
fluff said:
That's unusual logic. Given that every person alive today will die (and much sooner than most species will go extinct) but there will be another person along sometime soon to replace them why do we worry about killing each other?
We don't for the most part, at least when it comes to international conflict. While there are laws about murdering your own countrymen, doing so to people in a different country is quite a different matter.
 

GumbaFish

Turbo Monkey
Oct 5, 2004
1,747
0
Rochester N.Y.
Tenchiro said:
The fact that no matter what we do as humans the fact remains that one day ever single species that is alive now will no longer exist, including us.

There will be new species, even similiar species of course. But the fact remains that almost every species of plant and animal that has ever existed is now extinct.
I think its fair to say that I spend a lot more time thinking about wildlife issues then 99% of the people on this board. The problem isnt just that species are going extinct, it is the rate at which they are going extinct. Most species have gone extinct, yet that has been over an extremely long time scale, the problem is the alarming rate of increase of despeciation since the last ice age. Humans have had an extremely adverse impact on the planet begining with unprecedented losses of megafauna during the last ice age and continuing untill today. Animals on all the continents except africa didn't have the evolutionary benefit of coevolving with humans and when they were bombarded with a new species that had begun to master its environment in the form of fire and simple tools they couldnt adapt in time. There is a difference between the dinosaurs going extinct because an asteroid hit and mammals were better able to adapt to cooler and darker conditions and an animal today going extinct because we built a highway through every last part of its habitat range. For you to say they are all going extinct anyways and there is nothing we can do is short sighted and selfish. If we are aware of a problem and can stop a species from going extinct but don't act that is a grave misuse of all of the evolutionary tools we as humans have been given in the form of mental capacity. If you found out you could die from cancer ...but if you did certain things it could greatly reduce your chance of death or maybe even make you completely healthy again I highly doubt you would just say "i'm going to die anyways I'll just keep on keeping on". Also for you to imply that these species don'f influence human welfare is just plain igonorant. In the pacific northwest many salmon runs are extinct or on the verge of extinction due to damming and fishing and you think that is just a problem for animals? That is a problem for people, an economic problem for all of the people who fish, who can salmon, who have eateries that sell salmon. Or what about all of the plants and animals that go extinct that we never even know about, what if they contain cures for diseases and are now lost forever. But hey we are all going to die anyways it might as well be from a disease that we could have cured but were too damn stupid to realize we killed the cure.
end of rant, I am now going to ride and blow off steam
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
Anyways, mostly what this bill is about is applying the Fith Amendment to environmental laws. It does almost nothing to hamper the (in)effectivness of the law itself.