21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, the Endangered Species Act serves a great cause, to prevent the extinction of any species because of human activity, but as Eric Hoffer warned:

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

Unfortunately, in the last 4 years, the ESA has become the basis for an explosion of lawsuits seeking to force hundreds of new species listings. Many of these suits are funded at taxpayers' expense, which in turn require Federal, State, and local agencies to spend even more taxpayer money to respond.

In northern California last month, this kind of litigation resulted in designating 2 million acres of the Sierra as critical habitat for three amphibians, despite overwhelming evidence that human activity is not to blame. The cause of the decline is nonnative predators and a virus affecting all amphibian species in the region.

The Natural Resources Committee has heard hours of testimony of how these decisions are based on highly questionable data from advocacy groups that include major mathematical errors, rank speculation, and selective suppression of data in order to arrive at predetermined conclusions.

This measure before us begins to address these abuses. It requires that supporting data be readily available to the general public, thus assuring greater scrutiny, and it requires that the government use the best available science and data from all sources.

It addresses the litigation crisis by requiring that legal costs be tracked and publicly reported, and it conforms those costs to the Equal Access to Justice Act that prevents extravagant claims for legal fees.

Louis Brandeis said that sunlight is the best of disinfectants. This bill places the data for implementing the ESA back into the sunlight where it can be fully scrutinized, and it places a modicum of restraint on the legal fees sought by out-of-control litigants.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source