“Statement by the National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association & Public Lands Council on Livestock Grazing on
Public Lands - Submitted to the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest
Health, The Honorable Greg Waldren, Chairman, of the House Committee
on Resources, The Honorable Richard Pombo, Chairman - By Mr.
Jim Chilton, April 13, 2005”
Describing the lawsuit assaults by the Center
for Biological Diversity and the Forest Guardians to enjoin cattle
grazing on the Chilton’s federal
grazing allotments, Jim Chilton lays bare the way that radical
preservationists have hijacked the failed Endangered Species
Act for purposes that Congress did not intend.
February 25, 2004:
“Ninth
Circuit Court Sets Precedent for Science in Landmark ESA Case”
- Press Release, House Resources Committee,
The Pacific Legal Foundation won a victory in the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals on February 24 over the National Marine Fisheries
Service, which was illegally invoking the Endangered Species
Act by keeping fish counts artificially low by counting only
naturally spawned, but not hatchery raised, genetically identical
salmon.
Pacific Legal Foundation
February 2001:
“Unions
Use Environmental Lawsuits to Extort Labor Agreements—Power
Plants in California Delayed”
See Also
Essential Books
& Publications
Defending Illusions - Federal Protection
of Ecosystems
By Allan K. Fitzsimmons
3192 Rivanna Court
Woodbridge, VA 22192
(703) 491-5615
This book examines the science, philosophy, and law of ecosystems
management and shows how
efforts to make federal protection of ecosystems the centerpiece
of national environmental policy are driven by religious veneration
of Mother Earth wrapped in a veil of science.
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Additional Resources
Central Idaho Wolf Coalition
John Nelson
website:
www.centralidahowolfcoalition.com
email: flypole@earthlink.net
The coalition was formed in February 2000 with the goal of ending
the “non-essential and experimental” Canadian gray
wolf introduction.
Websites
Chilton Ranch, Arivaca, Arizona
www.chiltonranch.com
The Chilton website focuses on their successsful lawsuit against
the Center for Biodiversity.
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In-Depth Information
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 “Warriors
for Our Time” - Book review by
Nathaniel R. Dickinson, Property Rights Foundation of America,
March 2007
Review of Warriors for the West by William Perry Pendley
(Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2006)
Perry Pendley, president and chief legal officer of Mountain
States Legal Foundation, chronicles the heroic battles of westerners
for freedom and land rights in the face of bureaucrats, environmental
groups and judges who are destroying the rights to land, the
viability of local communities, and freedom itself.
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 “Turning
the Tables-Defamation Suit Defeats Environmental Group”-
By James K. Chilton, Jr., Chilton Ranch & Cattle Co., Arivaca,
Arizona, Tenth annual National Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, Albany, NY, October 14, 2006)
James Chilton won a ruling in Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
that his ranch could not be regulated under NEPA because of potential
habitat when the species under consideration was not present.
Afterwards, Mr. Chilton successfully brought a defamation suit
against the Center for Biological Diversity for their publication
of photos to maliciously misrepresent conditions on his ranch.
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 “The Endangered
Species Act—Can It Be Reformed?”-Robert J. Smith,
President, Center for Private Conservation & Adjunct Environmental
Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Tenth Annual National
Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October
14, 2006)
The Endangered Species Act was conceived to control people,
not to save species. It has never worked for its supposed purpose
to save species. The Endangered Species Act created incentive
to destroy red-cockaded woodpecker habitat in Boiling Springs,
North Carolina. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was backed
down by bad publicity after trying to force tree farmer Ben Coon
of North Carolina to put his land under their extreme red-cockaded
woodpecker restrictions. Congress is unlikely to reform the ESA
soon.
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- “Fact,
Fiction, and Opinion” - Book Review by Nathaniel R.
Dickinson (PRFA, July 2006)
The Essential Grizzly by Doug and Andrea Peacock (Lyons
Press, 2006)
Presumptions cripple this book on grizzlies. A blend of facts
and fiction, politics and advocacy, this compendium of essays
on grizzlies and the authors’ opinions on their importance
to man wastes an opportunity to compile reams of knowledge into
a credible work.
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- “Misconceptions
Make this Book Beastly” - Book Review by Nathaniel R.
Dickinson
The Beast in the Garden, David Baron,
W. W. Norton and Company, 2004
Killings of human beings by cougars in areas near built-up
suburbs have led Baron to advocate for action by public agencies
and private groups to preserve more open space, rather than identify
problems and needs. In addition to accounts of encounters with
cougars, Baron’s writing includes a hodgepodge ranging
from a study of deep-seated fear of cats to discourses on multiculturalism,
feminism, environmentalism and Native Americanism. The strict
preservationist stance displays a lack of appreciation of the
natural world.
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 “Forward
for Private Property Rights”-by James S. Burling, Senior
Counsel, Pacific Legal Foundation, Speech to the Ninth Annual
National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N.Y., October 22, 2005)
Pacific Legal Foundation has won lawsuits such as the Suitum
and Palazzolo cases by looking at what happens to real-life
people hit by regulations. In the older Nollan and Dolan
cases, the property owner won because of the nonsensical results
of regulation. But an oil company was not a sympathetic litigant
in Chevron v. Lingle, and the justices failed to grasp
economic logic. The Endangered Species Act Reform Act has important
provisions to help landowners.
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 “Litigating
for Private Property Rights — A Western Perspective”
- By Harriet M. Hageman, Attorney, Hageman and Brighton, P.C.,
Cheyenne, Wyoming; Speech to the Ninth Annual Conference on
Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N. Y. October 22,
2005)
Threats to private property rights affect our families, our
communities, our environment, our educational system and the
future of our children. With the Preble’s Jumping
Mouse and the introduction of the Canadian gray wolf into Wyoming
as examples, the Endangered Species Act is being manipulated,
not for the purpose of benefiting endangered species, but to
limit management and use of private property.
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 “Endangered
Species Act Victims” - By Mark Bragg, The Broadcast
Group, Washington, D.C., Speech to the Ninth Annual National
Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y.,
October 22, 2005)
After surmounting years of obstruction by the Sierra Club
and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service of his proposed golf
resort in Palm Springs, California, Mr. Bragg founded Victims
of the Endangered Species Act to publicize the stories of people
who have been hurt by the law.
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- “Whither
the Endangered Species Act?” - By Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, June 2005)
Industry lobbyists advocated a strategy of “strengthening”
and “modernizing” the Endangered Species
Act, while avoiding mention of the importance of private property
rights. Industry tactics divided the property rights movement,
while the grassroots leadership of the movement was kept out
of the loop during the drafting of the Pombo bill. The “2005
Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act” does
not protect property rights and does not substitute voluntary
protection of species for the failed regulatory approach.
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- Secret Endangered Species Reauthorization Bill in U.S. Congress
- Letter to Rep.
Richard Pombo, from Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA,
June 15, 2005
In response to industry, sometime during the spring, House
Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo drafted a bill to
reauthorize the Endangered Species Act, incorporating reforms
advocated by industrial interest groups, without allowing the
property rights movement to have copies of the bill.
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- “An
Honest, Objective Critique of the Endangered Act” -
By Nathaniel R. Dickinson (PRFA, March 29, 2005)
This analysis of some of the most important language of the
Endangered Species Act of 1973, such as the discussion of “critical
habitat” and the definition of “endangered
species,” demonstrates that it needs a major overhaul.
Well-educated, totally objective scientists should be called
in to re-write the Act and guide its implementation.
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- “The
Endangered Species Act—A National Policy of Modernization
to Protect Private Property Rights”-By Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA Background Brief, February 2005)
Modernization of the 1973 Endangered Species Act to use sound
science and protect private property rights should include a
national habitat protection plan, DNA criteria for species listings,
a property rights ombudsman, regulatory takings compensation
modeled after Oregon Measure 37, voluntary reserves, private
competition, federal supersession, and judicial reform.
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- “A National Policy
to Protect Private Property Rights”
-By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, November 16, 2004)
The Endangered Species Act should not be re-authorized unless
full protection for private property rights id provided. Presentation
points to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition
(NESARC) meeting, American Farm Bureau Federation Headquarters,
Washington, D.C.
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- “Yes, Our
President Has a Clear Mandate and the Will of the People Must
Be Heeded” - By Nate Dickinson (PRFA, November 10, 2004)
The election of 2004 gives President George W. Bush the opportunity
to correct the Administration’s neglect of so-called
environmental matters. Issues such as endangered species, wise
use of the National Forests, and oil drilling need to be tackled
with intelligence. The influence of radical environmental groups
must be challenged and diminished.
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 “A
Voice for Forest Landowners in Washington—Protecting Productive
Private Property” - By Scott Jones, Executive Vice President,
Forest Landowners Association, Atlanta, Ga.; Speech to the Eighth
Annual Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N. Y. October 23, 2004)
By partnering with organizations like the Forest Landowners
Association, we can educate Congress about private property rights.
Working together, we stopped regulations like TDML, which would
have hurt forest management. We can eliminate the “death
tax” and make incremental changes to the Endangered
Species Act.
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 “Abundance
Ecology—The Liberty Garden” - By Michael Shaw,
Freedom 21 Radio Talk Show host, Proprietor of Liberty Garden,
Aptos, California; Speech to the Eighth Annual Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N. Y. October 23,
2004)
By using intensive management, native plants whose seed bank
was long dormant returned in great variety to Liberty Garden
in Santa Cruz County on coastal California. Abundance ecology,
based on private property rights, is the opposite of shortage
ecology, based on the Endangered Species Act.
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- “The
President Exhibits Character on Earth Day” - By Nathaniel
R. Dickinson (PRFA, April 23, 2004)
Earth Day has its roots in the scare-mongering of pseudo-science.
The environmental movement is spearheaded by numerous well-heeled,
ultra-liberal groups whose concern for the natural world is somewhere
out in the wings.
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 “The Corps of Engineers’ Columbia River
Estuary Fiasco” — By Jim Starr, Contributing
Writer (PRFA, March 2003)
Dredging, tern, and salmon smolt pose conflict. The Corps
of Engineers’ dredging has created islands from which
tern prey on juvenile salmon, but the Corps’ doomed
approach to reducing predation is heavy-handed and based on fallacy.
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- “Turning
the Tables — ‘Good Guys’ Using Environmental Law”
- By Kathleen Benedetto, National Wilderness Institute, Washington,
D.C, Speech at the Sixth Annual New York Conference on Private
Property Rights (PRFA, November 16, 2002)
Federal agencies fail to abide by environmental law that everybody
else has to adhere to. NWI’s Endangered Species Act
lawsuit complains that the EPA and other federal agencies are
failing to protect the bald eagle and the short-nosed sturgeon
during construction of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac.
Their Clean Water Act lawsuit charges that the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers allows the Washington Acqueduct to discharge 200,000
tons sludge annually into the Potomac.
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 “Protecting
Private Property-Prospects in the 108th Congress” -
By Michael Hardiman, Hardiman Consulting, Washington, D.C., Speech
at the Sixth Annual New York Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, November 16, 2002)
Mr. Hardiman sees a strong chance for improvements to the
Endangered Species Act, to require sound science to list new
species, and an excellent chance that the estate tax, whose biggest
supporter is the land trusts, will be permanently repealed.
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- “Beware
of Those Noxious Wildlife Corridors” — By Nate
Dickinson, Wildlife Biologist (PRFA, Aug. 16, 2002)
Americans should wake up to the threat to traditional American
values posed by the pseudo-science of the Wildlands Project,
which is being used to advocate federal ownership of land between
“core” areas such as the Okefenokee and
Osceola National Forests in Florida.
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- Don Fife’s Page
An environmental geologist, Don Fife has served four secretaries
of the interior as an appointee/advisor for the 25-million-acre
California Desert Conservation Area. His incisive topics range
from “Greens Force Strategic Mine Out of Business—Communist
China now controls supply of rare minerals” to “Locoweed
Closes 48,000 Acres of Alogones Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Park.”
(Updated February 11, 2002)
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- “Federal
Landownership and Control”-by Robert J. Smith, Center
for Private Conservation, Competitive Enterprise Institute-Reprinted
from Proceedings of the Fourth Annual NY Conference on Private
Property Rights (PRFA 1999)
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- “Maybe
Someone Should Spend More Time Consulting the Grizzly”
- By Nate Dickinson, Wildlife Biologist, Altamont, N.Y. 1994
Grizzlies are much more tolerant of human interaction than
environmentalists allege. Furthermore, they range across a great
reserve of parks in western Canada, where they are fully protected.
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