R.J. Smith, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, says these perverse incentives make the ESA, in its current form, “bad for humans and bad for species.”  Thus, as Congress considers reauthorizing the ESA this spring, the National Center, CEI, Capital Research Center, and a number of other Constitution-loving policy groups are calling for ESA reform to include protections for private property owners.

The environmentalists on the other side of this issue won’t budge.  Despite the fact that most right-leaning groups are choosing at this time to focus on strengthening property rights and not repealing the ESA (one exception being Stewards of the Range), most Green groups won’t listen to common sense.  They seem to agree with the Animal Liberation Front that animals take priority over people.

A few more examples of ESA-induced craziness:

• “Camp Pendleton in Southern California is one of the best places to train our men and women in uniform,” says Peyton Knight of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “Yet it is also home to the San Diego fairy shrimp, a tiny crustacean that lives in stagnant puddles of water.  Camp Pendleton’s commanding general told Congress in 2003 that endangered species such as the fairy shrimp were the biggest obstacle to military training and readiness on his base.”
  
• After logging restrictions were placed on federally owned forests in 1989 to protect the northern spotted owl, 288 sawmills in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and California were closed, 31,438 jobs directly related to logging were lost, and 63,000 indirect jobs went away.  Years later, folks realized that the owls really weren’t fragile enough to warrant the restrictions after all.
  
• In 2001, the feds cut off irrigation water to 1400 farms in the Klamath Basin of Oregon in order to protect the coho salmon.  As a result, farmers had no water during a severe drought, and many had to sell their land.  Later, people realized that the coho salmon weren’t endangered after all.

It’s time for our federal officials to take responsibility for their actions.  No longer should private property owners suffer, regardless of whether ESA restrictions are necessary.  By compensating private landowners for property affected by land-use restrictions, the federal government will have to decide how much such regulations are really worth.  If the feds don’t want to pay the bill, they can simply waive the restrictions and let landowners live in peace.

You can help endangered property owners by contacting Congress and telling our leaders to make sure property rights are included in any attempt to reform the Endangered Species Act.  Tell them to reverse the trend and to put people first.