hmmmm...interesting to say the least. Looking at the list of supporters raises a big red flag. Many are those who have historically claimed to be "burdened" by the ESA....forestry, agriculture, petroleum, mining, water districts, realtors, homebuilders, off road businesses and utilitiy interests, to name a few.
While I agree that the ESA has some flaws and has at times been used to list species inappropriately, not sure that this is for the best either.

By "recovery" they mean "ending all that annoying restriction for industry". It's just more of this double-speak that the administration always uses--when they want to allow more logging in forests, they call it the "Healthy Forests Initiative", when they want to let factories pollute more they call it the "Clear Skies" bill, etc. With the Bush administration, always assume that they mean the opposite of what they say.

In this case, it's quite simple--they start from a fact, that the ESA isn't accomplishing its goals as well as it should, and then propose to "solve" this problem by gutting the ESA and making sure it never has a chance to accomplish its goals.

Patrick Alexander

Well said, Patrick.
Most military installations will be applauding this as well-the DoD has the most T&E species in their care on land in "Public Trust". Or should I say, had?

This group seems to be about commercial interests and profits. When they say "save our species" I think they are referring to a particular species of environmental rapists.

Gutting the ESA will do little to save threatened or endangered species.

A nice quote on this from Brock Evans:

"Q: I saw a press release recently from a group called Save Our Species Alliance. The group claims that the ivory-billed woodpecker recovered all on its own with "no federal assistance of any kind." According to the group, this proves that the Endangered Species Act is ineffective and needs to be "modernized." What is your reaction to this statement and what do you know about this group?

A: This is such an ill-informed, may I say bogus, claim that it almost defies belief. As pointed out above, the ivory-billed woodpecker was found in its small bit of remaining habitat - the swamp forests of the Cache Refuge. It wasn't found and couldn't ever be found in the flat soybean fields which USED to be their forest habitat too.

Ivory-bills need special places - "habitats" - to find food, reproduce, and have shelter, just like humans and just like every other species of plant or animal on this planet. River bottom swamp forests are their required habitat, not concrete or soybean fields. If creating the federal Refuge 30+ years ago, and then protecting its habitat, isn't "government assistance" without which the woodpecker couldn't be saved, well I don't know what is!

I have never heard of the "Save Our Species Alliance" before now. It sounds like just another of the developer- or industry-funded front groups out there whose real purpose is to gut or totally repeal the Endangered Species Act. Such ersatz groups always pick a nice-sounding title, and carefully use words like "modernize," etc. But when you see their real agenda, it is not to "modernize" the ESA, but to render it ineffective and impotent so that it will not protect any more species or their habitats. Once the ESA is thus weakened, the developers who fund these groups can proceed with all kinds of habitat-destroying activities, even if the wildlife will be thus exterminated.

These groups are very careful to use environmental-sounding names and slogans because they know that the American people support better, not weaker, protections for endangered species. The Endangered Species Act is a great, very effective, and noble law as it now stands. If anything, it should be strengthened, not weakened as these front groups desire."

Here is a link that might be useful: the whole article

Apologies all! I should have known. After reading back over the site I decided to attempt to read the actual legislation. Looks like we may as well scrap the Endangered Species Act if this passes.

It is all VERY misleading, and I fell for it without doing my homework!

I was duped, sorry! I posted this message last night, it must have got lost in cyberspace.

Here's a link to the actual legislation:

Here is a link that might be useful: TESRA legislation

No need to apologize. It is hard to know when an organization actually exists, has goals in keeping with the stated purposes and doesn't exist simply for self-serving reasons.

We saw this in the 2000 elections when John McCain's primary bid was torpedoed by misleading, negative ads filled with half-truths run by a group supposedly called "Republicans for Clean Air." This "environmental group" proved to be fictitious, consisting of Sam Wyly and his brother, billionaires from Texas, heavy political contributors to McCain's rival.

This "group," The Save Our Species Alliance, for all I can learn from the website, may be one person. The director, the only individual whose name I could see, was a PR man for Georgia Pacific, is an executive for a lobbying firm and has worked to promote Bush's so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative."

So don't feel bad. It's easy to be scammed by people with the money to set up front organizations, purchase broadcast time and promote a hidden agenda under the guise of a noble cause.

The bill has passed in Congress and will now go to the Senate.It is designed to replace the Endangered Species act from 1973.Which was Passed almost unanimously in both houses. Apparently public sentiment is more appathetic towards the environmental issues now than we were thirty years ago.
I hope that all of us who care will make an effort to
keep this bill from becoming law.
The present administration has shown itself to be willing to sacrifice the future to promote its interests.

If you feel strongly about this you can always send your senator an email or letter and let them know you are concerned. The bill in the house was sponsored by Richard Pombo who is a California congressman, rancher and developer. It had the full backing of the bush administration.

When does this come up for vote? I couldn't figure that out.

It's currently in committee (Enviornment and Public Works) in the senate.
HR3824

Pombo is also attempting to gut our national park system - NPCA just sent out an action alert.

Since I am barely computer literate I am not the one to do this, but isnt there a simple way to inform all users of all the Garden Web Forums and other web based forums of this travesty.
I feel that enough people do care and would rally if they were aware of what is going on, and how to make their voice heard.
It seems that the majority of media is controlled by the powers that promote legislation such as this and so will not attempt to inform us of what is really going down.

Rudy,

There are sites out there that send email alerts about issues like this to people who have signed up for them.

Here's one, and I've put another on the link field:

http://www.nwf.org, National Wildlife Federation

When I see something like this in the newspaper or from an email alert, and I want to see if it's been posted, I think I'm most likely to see it on the Bird Watching Forum. For this particular issue, I saw a posting on the Wildlife Gardening Forum and didn't check for it on the Bird Watching Forum. Since that's where Elly hangs out the most, I'm sure it's there. In the past I'd be most likely to post something like this on the Wildlife Gardening Forum. I'll try to remember to post or at least link to another post here also.

I had thought I had received no email alert on this issue, but looking back at my inbox, it looks like the National Wildlife Federation did send me one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Union of Concerned Scientists

To get a better understanding of the double talk, check out:

www.luntzspeak.com

I received an alert from Audubon.org on this. They're requesting people reach legislators and the taskforce with comments by November 23rd.

BTW, my intentions to post about this type of thing were good, but I must admit, that when I've gotten too busy I'm just not doing it.

Here is a link that might be useful: National Environmental Policy Act. Comments needed by 11/23

If people really cared about the environment we would not have Bush in the white house or a majority of republicans in both houses of conress.

I think of this thread as similar to the ANWAR thread. The time to vote for the environment is when YOU go to the poles. ANWAR and ESA were decided in the last few elections by the american people.

And is sad.

I understand that the election results were disappointing, but I don't think that people should give up on trying to do anything until we have people elected that see the environment as a priority. If there's a reasonable chance that making the effort does help, I'm hoping people will do it. These alerts IÂve signed up for make doing something relatively painless.

IÂve read that the administration is losing a large part of its support, and this aided in getting some legislators to vote against the party in terms of the Artic Refuge drilling. I've also read that there are segments of the politically conservative that care about the environment, and are making this a priority. IÂm of the opinion that if we wait to prevent global until thereÂs a new administration to slow global warming, weÂre definitely waited too long (if we havenÂt already). Some people say thereÂs not enough proof that people are responsible for global warmingÂmy take on this is to compare the consequences of not acting if we are responsible versus the consequences of acting if we are.

"If people really cared about the environment we would not have Bush..."

That attitude - the tying of environmental issues to a particular party or political viewpoint - is really the problem, and part of what helps to marginalize them. The left takes environmental support for granted, the right, no matter how the individual candidates feel themselves, have nothing to gain by supporting issues that're labeled "left side only".

So what are us poor voters to do? I'd like to support candidates that're concerned about environmental issues, but because of that tie-in to the left, the ones who do are mostly those whose other positions are even more detestable than those of the Bush crowd. So I'm stuck weighing the environment against too damned many other things.

You have twisted my comments. I agree it doesnt matter what party a politician is from as an indicator of how they are going to vote on environmental protections.

However, the current administration prooved their environmental record in the first term, yet was re-elected. Which tells me that most americans don't consider the environment a priority.

I think there are many people out there who tend towards the right wing, AND care about the environment.

What IÂd love to see happen is concern about the environment and wildlife become an issue that would differentiate the conservative politicians from each other. Maybe if people make enough noise about this, the politicians will realize itÂll give them an edge. I think it may even be happening a bit already.

"Which tells me that most americans don't consider the environment a priority."

Not necessarily. What it proves is that most people either aren't one-issue voters, or if they are, their issue isn't the environment. Would you vote for a candidate with a strong environmental record, if his/her positions on just about every other issue were completely at odds with yours?

Do you think the current administrations attitude towards environmental issues sort of represents their attitude toward other issues?
It seems that some of the decisions they make and the positions they take tend to be short sighted.
They are willing to sacrifice clean air and water in order to support the interests/profits of corporate polluters like mining,logging, and manufacturing companies.
They are willing to disrupt a sensitive environment in the arctic to squeeze out a little more of our precious oil/gas
to keep the machine humming a few more years.
They are willing to gamble that the issues of global warming and ozone depletion are caused by something cyclical or something other than our/their actions and will go away by themselves.
That civil and human rights are less important than their agenda that they tell us is needed to fight the "war on terrorism."
It seems strange to me that executives of oil companies would have input into making decisionson our nations energy
policies.
It feels wrong that Haliburton is making billions of dollars in the Mid East.
It seems strange that the reasons we were given for invading Iraq turn out to be not true.
That Colin Powell would bail on this administration after they made him get up at the U.N. and say things that he knew were not facts.
It feels wrong that the trade balance and deficit are snowballing.
In short the situation we have now is not sustainable Can not continue indefinately. There will be consequences in the long run.
The administration is in denial. They spin the truth, they try to scare us into thinking that the boogeyman is waiting around the corner.
I dont consider myself a Democrat or a Republican. I am an American. Maybe a little more LIBERAL than some.
I vote for the person with whom I agree the most, or disagree the least...

Rudy, You hit it right on the head! I agree with what you just posted 100%. I'm not even going to post what I'm thinking about the government as it is right now because I don't want to offend anyone (or get flamed)!

I did see a wonderful "environmental" bumper sticker the other day:

SAVE THE PLANET, MORE TREES, LESS BUSH!

Ditto what Rudy and Fred said.
Martha

"Clear Skies" allows more pollution. "Save Our Forests" meant for clear cutting. Lots of people getting fooled here, fred. Don't feel bad, at least you figured it out.

It is people who who want to bury their heads in the sand that are the problem, not folks who want to discuss issues. Any dissent will be met with denounciation. Remember what Dubya said when he was asked if he ever got used to protesters, "After a while you learn to ignore them".

Indeed...

Lets send the industrialists a message they can't ignore in 2008...