The Price of Gas and the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Blog:

Hugh Hewitt
4/25/11

First, here are the first three graphs of a story out of west Texas:

(Snip)

This lizard isn't protected under the Endangered Species Act ("ESA") ---yet. But if the industry, lessees and land owners, and affiliated businesses and communities do not rally to present the necessary science and defend against the typically hyperbolic claims of the species' imminent demise due to "habitat fragmentation" presented by anti-growth, anti-energy environmental extremists, the lizard will soon add another burden to the business of energy production, just as scores of species listings in other states have diminished economic growth across a number of industries.

The abuse of the ESA is more than two decades old, but is now something of a science on the left, and the sporadic attempts to amend the ESA over the years have all come to naught. I have battled such listing for 20 years and it is crucial not just for the soon-to-be-impacted property-owners and industry interests to organize, but also for the House Natural Resource Committee to exercise oversight on this proposed listing and all new listings and to make sure that the administrative record is full of arguments against the listing and especially against the entire theory of "habitat loss" as a rationale for a listing.



"It's just another listing" is the familiar refrain of the MSM and the Beltway trade associations are weary of these battles. But this one and others that will impact domestic oil production ought to at least bring some new industries beside land owners and property-rights activists into the battle to return balance to the ESA.