Scott Powers
Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Webster has joined the Western Caucus in a call for Congress to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, declaring it a failure for endanger species and a “crushing” burden on agriculture.
Webster, of Lake County, was one of 30 Republican congressmen to sign a letter Tuesday to congressional leaders calling for them to take up an effort to rewrite the landmark 1973 environmental protection law. The effort was organized by the Congressional Western Caucus, though some of the signers, including Webster, are not members of that caucus.
“Agriculture is one of the three pillars of Florida’s economy. Farmers and ranchers all over Florida grow and raise the food that ends up on kitchen tables around the world. The economic engine of agriculture must be complimented with sound, long-term policies that balance the importance of protecting our nation’s beautiful lands,” Webster stated in a news release.
“Unfortunately, overzealous bureaucrats in Washington turned the Endangered Species Act into a weapon wielded against hard-working Americans,” he continued. “With President [Donald] Trump, we have an opportunity to reform the ESA to ensure that it meets its purpose without destroying the livelihoods of those who work the land.”
The letter, to the chairs and ranking members of the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Natural Resources, cites Trump’s April 26 executive order to roll back some rules and regulations associated with the act, but argues the law itself needs full “modernization.”
The letter contends that only 3 percent of the 1,652 plant and animal species that were ever listed as endangered have recovered enough to be removed from protection status, a rate the signatory members of Congress call “a clear failure.”
Their call makes few specific recommendations for reforms, though it does say “attacks on property rights through substantial federal regulation” must be curtailed, and that the act’s “one-size-fits-all approach to species protection … has little regard for solutions from states and local shareholders. It also calls for better-defined recovery goals, and for “society as a whole to bear recovery costs… not specific property owners and employers.”
“The letter encourages the committees to work together to adopt a system that induces and incentivizes thoughtful and collaborative regulation,” stated a news release from the Congressional Western Caucus. “Such a process will empower farmers and ranchers to do what they do best—produce food and other agriculture products in abundance for the American people and the rest of the world.”
