Yesterday, I wrote a letter to Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. The letter was generated by the World Wildlife Fund as part of a campaign to defend the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Senator Chambliss (meaning, of course, the office of Senator Chambliss) responded with a letter outlining the senator's views regarding the ESA. That letter is posted here, followed by my personal response, in the interest of promoting the kind of active and open dialog that is necessary to a healthy democracy. (I have informed Senator Chambliss of this posting and will also post any reply he offers.)

April 5, 2006

Dear Ms. Sky:

Thank you for your letter regarding the reauthorization and reform of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  I appreciate hearing from you. 

The ESA was enacted in 1973 and provides for the conservation of threatened and endangered species and the habitats where they are found.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are currently 632 endangered species and 190 threatened species.  These species include birds, insects, fish,
reptiles, mammals, crustaceans, flowers, grasses, and trees. 

Under the ESA, the law prohibits any action that adversely affects their habitat or results in a "taking" of a listed species.  A "taking," as defined by the ESA, "is to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, collect, or attempt to engage in any such conduct."  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service defines "harm" as an act which kills or injures wildlife and  such act may include significant habitat modification where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patters, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering. Proponents of reforming the ESA assert that these terms are too broad and adversely affect day to day operations of farmers and ranchers who use their land for their livelihood.

As a father and a grandfather, I believe in taking steps now to leave a better environment for the future and I will support environmental policies that protect the environment, allow farmers to make a living, and allow property owner's the use of their land.  I would like to see more scientific research and data gathered before a species is placed on the endangered or threatened list.  I believe the role of states should be enhanced to help promote landowner involvement in protection and recovery.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.  If you would like to receive timely email alerts regarding the latest congressional actions and my weekly e-newsletter, please sign up via my web site at: www.chambliss.senate.gov.  Please do not hesitate to be in touch if I may ever be of assistance to you.

Sincerely,

Saxby Chambliss
United States Senate

Dear Senator Chambliss,

I can not tell you how much I appreciate your detailed response to my letter regarding the Endangered Species Act.

I have no doubt that proponents of reforming the ESA assert that the Act adversely affects "day to day operations of farmers and ranchers who use their land for their livelihood." The Act is, in fact, designed to do so. If protecting our natural wildlife in all of its diversity imposed no hardships whatsoever on our human society, there would be no need for a law to require that protection.

It is in the highest public interest to protect our remaining wilderness, wherever it may roam, fly, flit, or grow, and all of humanity would surely spontaneously do so if it were not for the fact that this interest all too often comes into conflict with our own private interests in grazing, farming, development, and the like. The point of the ESA is to assert the general will of the People that such private interests should have to bow to the greater good of the whole when the very survival of our common heritage is at stake.

I am somewhat concerned by your statement that you "would like to see more scientific research and data gathered before a species is placed on the endangered or threatened list." I sincerely hope you would not support any such reform that would essentially cut the legs out from under the ESA by allowing private land owners to continue to destroy our natural wildlife while scientists and bureaucrats argue over whether or not a species should be protected. I would be relieved of this concern to hear you say that you would support a more stringent process of research and data gathering only if that process were to trigger a mandatory "time out," if you will, so that all potentially threatening land use were required to cease until the investigation were complete.

An even deeper concern lies in the fact that statistics and analysis are not the tools of an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent higher power. They are the tools of human science, and as such, they are subject to interpretation, conjecture, and outright manipulation. Scientific analysis, like any other human endeavor under our current economic system, must be bought, and any human activity that can be bought can also be "encouraged" in one direction or another by the one who holds the purse strings.

This basic truth underlies the very separation of powers upon which this great nation is founded, and this same truth is no less powerful today than it was over two hundred years ago. I do not believe that the power to make decisions regarding the listing of a species should be essentially placed in the hands of the private individuals who stand to benefit from the decision. So any more rigorous process of study must remain in public hands and must be paid for by the public treasury. If you believe greater research is necessary to the listing process, I would be interested to hear your ideas on how we might pay for this heightened vigilance.

I am also somewhat concerned by your statement that you "believe the role of states should be enhanced to help promote landowner involvement in protection and recovery." While the idea of private landowners faithfully watering protected vegetation and erecting erosion barriers to protect endangered habitats warms my heart, I suspect nonetheless that this is not the sort of involvement that most landowners have in mind. Forgive the humor in my response, I beg you, for in all seriousness it is "landowner involvement" that represents the most significant threat to the survival of our nation's endangered wildlife.

Despite the above concerns, I do have sympathy for your predicament. I recognize that as an elected official you must represent the interests of the citizens of this state as private individuals as well as the interests of those same citizens in their collective public good, and I recognize as well that these interests are not always simple to reconcile. I believe it is critical for the ESA to continue to uphold the collective good of species survival wherever it comes into conflict with private interests. However, I would gladly support any creative solution to this economic dilemma that would properly shift the burden of this choice from the shoulders of individual landowners to the public weal, where it rightfully belongs.

At the very least, the economic burden should be carried by each affected industry (farming, ranching, land development, etc.) as a whole, rather than by a few individual market participants who are unfortunate enough to have purchased land later found to be home to a protected species. Capitalism only functions with true efficiency for the good of the whole when the true costs of doing business are incorporated into each market. If developing land comes at the cost of destroying our public heritage, that cost must be built into the market system. Only then can private economic decisions be reconciled with the public good.

This has always been the purpose of imposing controls upon an otherwise free market. We fine those who would pollute our groundwater because those who create that pollution must be forced to bear its true costs. We recognize the laws of "nuisance" because we believe that noxious land uses must incur the costs of the burdens they place upon their neighbors. The ESA is no different.

As long as the needs of the many can be burdened by the needs of the one, private interests must be forced to pay the public costs of their economic decisions. Justice is maintained when the burden is spread across an entire industry, so that all participants in the industry bear that burden equally, and individuals can then choose whether or not to participate in that industry based on full knowledge of the ensuing costs. Our private interests must not be merely "balanced against" the public good. They must be structured to incorporate it.

Sincerely,
EM Sky