2023 Species Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the great State of Washington for giving me this opportunity and giving the people back home this opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise on behalf of the communities and the residents of west central Indiana to share our experience with the Endangered Species Act.

As an animal scientist and a farmer, I am a lifelong conservationist. I value the well-intended effort of the ESA to protect and conserve our Nation's most iconic species that really define our landscapes and have shaped our heritage.

Unfortunately, I believe the ESA has failed to achieve the underlying mission, and many of my constituents have been forced to experience the consequences firsthand.

Lakes Freeman and Shafer near Monticello, Indiana, have been a proper and appropriate tourist destination--home to many small businesses and attractions, and a vibrant local economy. A series of droughts and a tangle of bureaucratic red tape involving ESA devastated our once- thriving community.

Following a listing more than a decade ago of mussels on the endangered species list found in the Tippecanoe River, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service subsequently ordered a new higher volume of water to flow out of the Oakdale Dam that forms Lake Freeman, in an effort to preserve these now protected mussels.

This executive action by unelected bureaucrats became a death knell to the community and surrounding area. Businesses like the Tall Timbers Marina or The Madam Carroll cruise boat reported catastrophic losses of revenue. Homeowners along the lake reported ruined seawalls, dried up wells, and poor resale values.

The ESA not only failed to save the endangered population of mussels that sparked this misguided intervention--the mussels likely died from bacterial overload created by reducing a 1500-acre lake to a puddle-- but also claimed the lives of other wildlife in the area that died from the inhospitable conditions created by this rulemaking.

What happened in my district was an unmitigated disaster with antiquated Federal policies providing little resources for the community nearly leveled by its outstanding and outdated regulations.

After 50 years, it is time to modernize the law--to fix the broken parts, to make it better serve its intended purpose, and to allow for responsible solutions to disasters like Lake Freeman.

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Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I am glad he is pointing that out.

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