Endangered Species Act (EPA, BLM, etc.)

The Coffee Shop
1

wondering how you all feel about this. these are largely nixon era initiatives. clean air and water, environmentally friendly federal govt, the govt as a custodian of public lands. until recent years this has been pretty much a bipartisan set of values.

the current secty of interior is a former big oil lobbyist who just hired an acting head of the BLM whose policy is to sell off our public lands. the BLM, it was just announced, was moving its hdqts, just like the USDA, because, according to mick mulvaney, moving the hdqts is the only way to get rid of federal employees (hard to fire them, so, just move the hdqts).

gutting the endangered species act, and the EPA, dismantling public land and park ownership, seems all of a piece. what say you all?

2

Substantively, it sucks. But, it triggers the libs.

3

This is one area that is very very weak for Trump…

I do agree it needs to be revisited though… it’s been a really long time and maybe the house needs a little cleaning. I think gutting is rather strong word though.

4

I am 100% in favor of eliminating the migratory birds act. Those fuckers wake me up every goddamn morning and evidently it’s illegal to kill them or destroy their habitat.

5

gutting the endangered species act,

First, that is an act congress. To be gutted would require an act of congress signed by the President. Second, like most environmental laws, regulations implement much of the law and they can be changed, but change must be consistent with statute and changes are subject to notice and comment rulemaking. Third, there is discretion and leeway within regulations for different enforcement by different administrations.

I doubt any new statutory modifications are coming. As to regulatory changes, are there any pending rulemakings regarding the ESA regs that bother you? How may lawsuits by environmentalists are currently pending against executive branch involving ESA?

gutting the . . . the EPA

While the Executive can do some things, EPA’s functions are statutory and failure of EPA to perform statutory functions will subject EPA and President to a lawsuit. Have Sierra Club, et. al, filed any lawsuits against EPA for failure to perform non-discretionary statutory duties?

One area where the executive can have an effect is to slow down EPA “progress” in new regulations and with considering modifications to existing regulations based on new science. An example would be new water quality standards for PFAS (see e.g. this post by eb a couple years ago and other posts in that thread)

Environmental law was once my field but I haven’t been in it or followed it for over ten years. Anyone following the trade would have clear picture of what is going on – I don’t. Reading just Sierra Club website (“this Republican is destroying the environment, give us money to sue”) or industry trade publications (“this democrat will shut down industry and put us in the dark ages, give our association money to sue”), won’t give accurate pictures of what is happening. To me the best marker of how an administration is performing always was pending lawsuits. Many pending suits by either enviros or industry indicates the administration is too far to the extreme.

I tried to encourage a conversation here about the administration’s environmental policies a couple years ago.

Over time, I’d guess Reagan and co. (James Watt) would be listed by environmentalists as the worst administration in the modern environmental era. At the time the NYT headlines were constantly harping on environmental issues. Over the last few years it seems that all the bandwidth has been occupied by Russia collusion. I’d guess that my environmentalist friends are disappointed at what a distraction that was.

6

perhaps a better phrase would be, “gutting the intent (or effect) of the EPA” or the endangered species act by simply failing to enforce it. yes, you’re right, certainly there will be legal challenges. what i’m interested in is where you all stand. on which side of this you stand.

my question flows from my view - which i’ve already stated to the chagrin of some - that republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views. what i’m asking now is my attempt to prove myself wrong. if any group of republicans should be in favor of protection of our public lands, clean water, clean air, endangered species, it’s this group here who are, or at least used to be, tied to the use of lands as an avocation.

7

I think you’d speak with broader authority (outside your usual cheering crowd here) if you acknowledged the long history of tension between state vs federal powers–especially as it pertains to land usage and protections in the American West. Despite western pressure during the Sage Brush Rebellion we saw extensive legislation that sought to protect our land, water, air and wild life.

There is a natural and historical tension at work here. In so far as I understand it this latest guidance doesn’t “gut” anything as you suggest.

You and MattinSF/The Lorax can all enjoy your nice glass of cold cool clear and clean water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Read Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior: Theordore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. TR broke John Muir’s heart with that compromise between protection of natural resources and using them to our common good/progress.

So no I don’t want to see drilling in ANWR; yes i’d be for wind farms off shore and more drill rigs with expanded technical protections; I am suspect of fracking but recognize the boom it’s brought back to American gas/oil industry. While I appreciate Abbey’s works I believe the Sierra Club has gone to far left and confine myself these days to supporting The Nature Conservancy and Trout Unlimited.

/r

8

You and MattinSF/The Lorax can all enjoy your nice glass of cold cool clear and clean water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

Hetch Hetchy only supplies the bay, Dan lives way too far south. He probably drinks out of Lake Havasu

9

Environmental issues are where I think Trump will do the most long term damage. Most of the worst things can be undone in a matter of days or weeks once he is out of office. But actual damage to the environment, expanded development in previously undeveloped areas, permits issued, etc. either cannot be undone at all or will take years and decades to fix. Some things are effectively lost to us forever once they are gone.

I assume Trumpkins breathe air and drink water too. They have to know that short term profit is not worth causing long term damage. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama go to a wild area and tear up. They see something beautiful that should be preserved forever and enjoyed by their grandchildren’s grandchildren. Every president from at least Teddy Roosevelt felt that way. Trump and people like him see condos that aren’t built, potential hotels, untapped oil, and undug mines. They don’t care what the Everglades will look like in 100 years, they just don’t like mosquitoes.

10

You and MattinSF/The Lorax can all enjoy your nice glass of cold cool clear and clean water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

Hetch Hetchy only supplies the bay, Dan lives way too far south. He probably drinks out of Lake Havasu

i understand steve’s reference. there’s always a push/pull to environmentalism. i suspect john muir would’ve had a problem with the entire california department of water project had he lived another 50 or 75 years.

as for the sagebrush rebellion, that’s another point of legitimate conflict. but that was about whether BLM and other public lands should be under state or federal protection. the current head of the BLM has a different view: what public lands? why should there be any public lands? sell it all off to billionaires and corporations. mine the living jesus out of it.

the policy of the current administration is to reduce, roll back, gut, public lands, endangered species, and federal husbanding of clean air, water and food. what stephen miller is to race in america, mick mulvaney is to air, food, water, and public lands.

this would be, to me, a breaking point. i couldn’t back an administration, regardless of party, that took this posture. that said, there are certain things an administration - this or any other - could do that i’d back, even if it was at odds with conservationists. if a species is heading toward extinction not caused by destruction of habitat, that shouldn’t qualify it for federal protection. if the federal govt wants to hand land over to state control, subject to certain imperatives, fine. if federal firefighting practices have an adverse affect on regions, those regions should be stakeholders in the decisionmaking process.

11

I think it’s fair to say the term “conservative” no longer applies. At this point “regressives” is more accurate.

12

perhaps a better phrase would be, “gutting the intent (or effect) of the EPA” or the endangered species act by simply failing to enforce it. yes, you’re right, certainly there will be legal challenges. what i’m interested in is where you all stand. on which side of this you stand.

my question flows from my view - which i’ve already stated to the chagrin of some - that republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views. what i’m asking now is my attempt to prove myself wrong. if any group of republicans should be in favor of protection of our public lands, clean water, clean air, endangered species, it’s this group here who are, or at least used to be, tied to the use of lands as an avocation.

Direct answer: I’m Republican but favor environmental protection and consider the 70s and 80s environmental laws (CAA, CWA, CERCLA, EPCRTKA, etc) to beautiful masterpieces of legislation and governance. Those laws amaze me and I could wax poetic about them.

Indirect answer: people are complicated and their problems, beliefs, and virtues are all different. (Yet I believe each individual has the same dignity as every other.) Get off the internet, sit down with one Republican (or immigrant, or poor person, or science skeptic, or democrat) and you’ll get to know one person. Sit down with the next Republican (or immigrant, or poor person, or science skeptic, or democrat) and you’ll get to know another.

I’m not sure what “republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views” means, but I’m pretty sure it is bunk. Not because you don’t correctly characterize or understand a few people, but because in general the process of characterizing (stereotyping?) or trying to understand any group of people with a single nexus is a fools errand.

In point of fact, note that our electoral history demonstrates that neither party has as much as a rudimentary understanding of its own supporters. The orthodox Republicans let a buffoon who had never run for any office steal their party. They watched in disbelief as it happened before their eyes, powerless do do anything about it. The party of science was incapable of foreseeing the election of a reality show host or of finding a candidate and platform that would win the election. Every election the same thing. People are complicated.

13

perhaps a better phrase would be, “gutting the intent (or effect) of the EPA” or the endangered species act by simply failing to enforce it. yes, you’re right, certainly there will be legal challenges. what i’m interested in is where you all stand. on which side of this you stand.

my question flows from my view - which i’ve already stated to the chagrin of some - that republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views. what i’m asking now is my attempt to prove myself wrong. if any group of republicans should be in favor of protection of our public lands, clean water, clean air, endangered species, it’s this group here who are, or at least used to be, tied to the use of lands as an avocation.

Direct answer: I’m Republican but favor environmental protection and consider the 70s and 80s environmental laws (CAA, CWA, CERCLA, EPCRTKA, etc) to beautiful masterpieces of legislation and governance. Those laws amaze me and I could wax poetic about them.

Indirect answer: people are complicated and their problems, beliefs, and virtues are all different. (Yet I believe each individual has the same dignity as every other.) Get off the internet, sit down with one Republican (or immigrant, or poor person, or science skeptic, or democrat) and you’ll get to know one person. Sit down with the next Republican (or immigrant, or poor person, or science skeptic, or democrat) and you’ll get to know another.

I’m not sure what “republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views” means, but I’m pretty sure it is bunk. Not because you don’t correctly characterize or understand a few people, but because in general the process of characterizing (stereotyping?) or trying to understand any group of people with a single nexus is a fools errand.

In point of fact, note that our electoral history demonstrates that neither party has as much as a rudimentary understanding of its own supporters. The orthodox Republicans let a buffoon who had never run for any office steal their party. They watched in disbelief as it happened before their eyes, powerless do do anything about it. The party of science was incapable of foreseeing the election of a reality show host or of finding a candidate and platform that would win the election. Every election the same thing. People are complicated.

I was going to respond as a middle of road Republican who favors environmental protection, but not sure I could improve on your answer at all. So I’ll just say +1.

14

I’m not sure what “republicanism is a strict orthodoxy made of disparate views” means

let me give you an example. i’m a gun owner. democrats have often gotten the narrative wrong in 2A. it’s not about hunting or target shooting. 2A is about arming yourself against the govt, should the govt become repressive. if we’re going to discuss the legitimacy of 2A it should be in this context. obviously there’s a push/pull with this, because the very govt you’re arming yourself against is the govt telling you which guns you can’t buy. so, there’s a discussion worth having, that reasonable people can have.

then there’s evangelical christianity. you have to strain, work, really hard, with tweezers, to find anything in the new testament text that says anything other than: the power of christ is had by giving up power. love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, rather than, plug your enemies and spray those who persecute you.

this isn’t to say you can’t be a christian and a gun enthusiast. however, gun enthusiasm is like riches: it’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a AR15 owner to enter the kingdom of heaven. not to say it can’t be done. just, there’s no natural fit there. there’s a significant incongruity here.

therefore, what i refer to is the neat overlay, in republicanism, between 2A enthusiasts and christian evangelicals. there is a near absolute overlay among elected officials. if you’re a christian lawmaker you’re also against any limit on the purchase of an AR15. near zero space between these two. does this neat overlay extend out to the general population of republicans? don’t know. but i don’t hear any complaints out there in the heartland.

also: any brand of christianity and the trumpian orthodoxy on immigration exists in hard tension. and please don’t say, “so you want open borders!” there is an incongruity between these two worldviews. place “stranger” in your concordance and look up the biblical references.

as you go down the line of republican orthodoxy what you see - well, what i see - are a lot of bullet points, most of which are defensible (even if i don’t agree with them), but they are not congruous. federalism is okay. 2A enthusiasm are okay. the deconstruction of the administrative state is okay. life beginning at conception is okay. science skepticism is not okay but, it’s a thing. nationalism is not okay, but it’s a thing. which of those things go together?

the fact that they’re disparate, or incongruous, or even that they sit in direct tension, is okay. but these are all individual reasons to be a part of one coalition. what i find is that republicanism today - not conservatism, but republicanism - means not simply agreeing to be part of a coalition of disparate views, it means adhering to each of those views. this is what i mean. why does owning a gun automatically make you antithetical to equal pay for women? i don’t know why it does, but apparently it does.

15

Environmental issues are where I think Trump will do the most long term damage. Most of the worst things can be undone in a matter of days or weeks once he is out of office. But actual damage to the environment, expanded development in previously undeveloped areas, permits issued, etc. either cannot be undone at all or will take years and decades to fix. Some things are effectively lost to us forever once they are gone.

I assume Trumpkins breathe air and drink water too. They have to know that short term profit is not worth causing long term damage. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama go to a wild area and tear up. They see something beautiful that should be preserved forever and enjoyed by their grandchildren’s grandchildren. Every president from at least Teddy Roosevelt felt that way. Trump and people like him see condos that aren’t built, potential hotels, untapped oil, and undug mines. They don’t care what the Everglades will look like in 100 years, they just don’t like mosquitoes.

If you are correct, then the Democrats must be blamed for their poor strategic choices in how to deal with Trump. I sure I pointed out here two years ago in one of the collusion threads that Trump was doing all kinds of stuff – environmental and otherwise – which was escaping attention because the democrats and media were blinded to seeing anything besides the failed collusion narrative. In connection with that, they made the decision to not work with Trump because to do so would legitimize him. Now people are waking up to the fact that the guy has been governing for three years.

I believe that Trump would have liked nothing more than to be a bipartisan leader – encouraging deals between Republicans and Democrats. But following their strategy of making Trump a public enemy, democrats lost all chance to deal with him – including on issues such as environment. Give the guy some money for a wall and I’m sure he’d even designate some wilderness areas.

16

LOL. You’re drinking too much cool-aid.

For every neat republican overlay you find, I’ll counter with a democrat overlay or a democratic position that all adhere to. But would you be able to see it or admit it? Or are you hell bent on proving that you, and your party, is right, and the republicans are wrong?

If that is the case, you’ll never get me in line with your thinking. I don’t think either side is right or either side is wrong. We are talking about complicated people dealing with complicated policy and moral issues. I accept and respect the democrat view – sometimes I agree, more often disagree, but ultimately, I have to accept them for who they are.

People have always disagreed about things. Given that all have different nature (genetics) and nurture (environment), these differences will always exist.

17

why does owning a gun automatically make you antithetical to equal pay for women? i don’t know why it does, but apparently it does.

No, it doesn’t.

This is the kind of shit you write that makes me laugh out loud.

18

LOL. You’re drinking too much cool-aid. For every neat republican overlay you find, I’ll counter with a democrat overlay or a democratic position that all adhere to.

can you please do that? because, i don’t mind partnerships of convenience that live in tension inside a party. what i question are those partnerships morphing into a partywide orthodoxy. maybe you’re right. maybe there’s a single issue democrat, and other single issue democrat, and those single issues have nothing to do with each other, maybe are even antithetical to each other, yet over time the advocates of one of those issues became passionate believers in the other. i’m going to need your help on this.

19

Environmental issues are where I think Trump will do the most long term damage. Most of the worst things can be undone in a matter of days or weeks once he is out of office. But actual damage to the environment, expanded development in previously undeveloped areas, permits issued, etc. either cannot be undone at all or will take years and decades to fix. Some things are effectively lost to us forever once they are gone.

I assume Trumpkins breathe air and drink water too. They have to know that short term profit is not worth causing long term damage. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama go to a wild area and tear up. They see something beautiful that should be preserved forever and enjoyed by their grandchildren’s grandchildren. Every president from at least Teddy Roosevelt felt that way. Trump and people like him see condos that aren’t built, potential hotels, untapped oil, and undug mines. They don’t care what the Everglades will look like in 100 years, they just don’t like mosquitoes.

If you are correct, then the Democrats must be blamed for their poor strategic choices in how to deal with Trump. I sure I pointed out here two years ago in one of the collusion threads that Trump was doing all kinds of stuff – environmental and otherwise – which was escaping attention because the democrats and media were blinded to seeing anything besides the failed collusion narrative. In connection with that, they made the decision to not work with Trump because to do so would legitimize him. Now people are waking up to the fact that the guy has been governing for three years.

I believe that Trump would have liked nothing more than to be a bipartisan leader – encouraging deals between Republicans and Democrats. But following their strategy of making Trump a public enemy, democrats lost all chance to deal with him – including on issues such as environment. Give the guy some money for a wall and I’m sure he’d even designate some wilderness areas.

I am legitimately trying to figure out where you are going here without making any smartass replies. And since smartass is my default setting and I really don’t understand what you are saying give me some help.

The smartass in me says what you are saying is that since the Democrats wouldn’t give Trump what he wanted he is going to throw a tantrum and see if he can destroy the world. Or maybe in a fit of pique at not getting his wall he is going to go after everything he thinks liberals like and see if he can vandalize it in retribution.

So before I say the second paragraph out loud give me something more on what you mean.

20

why does owning a gun automatically make you antithetical to equal pay for women? i don’t know why it does, but apparently it does.

No, it doesn’t. This is the kind of shit you write that makes me laugh out loud.

i’m going to give this one try, and if all you reply with are more insults then i’ll do you a favor and place you on my do-not-repond list.

legislatively, apparently it does. what i see - and i’m happy to have you substantively show me where i’m wrong - is that legislatively, if you believe one of these things you believe the other. if you believe in 2A you believe in life at conception. if you believe in federalism you believe in science skepticism. none of that stuff goes together. and you, as a normal human, might not believe in all that stuff. but your representative does.