Endangered Species legislation (for US readers)

[Doug Yanega]

At the risk of touching off a political argument, it came to my 
attention only this evening that Congress is this week (Sept. 29th) 
dealing with a rather insidious bill, H.R. 3284, which is sponsored 
by one of the most flagrantly anti-environmental Representatives, 
Rep. Pombo - and those of us who study living things in the US, and 
feel that the Endangered Species Act is a good thing, need to respond 
ASAP, since some of the wishy-washy politicians simply count up how 
many "pro" and "con" e-mails they receive to decide which way they'll 
vote (i.e., sometimes a lot of e-mails actually *can* help).

The actual testimony of the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife 
and Parks at the U.S. Department of the Interior is here:

http://www.doi.gov/ocl/2005/HR3824.htm

and even this, which is written by someone who should, ostensibly, be 
strongly behind the legislation, has some pretty damning criticisms 
(I especially like the fact that he was given TWO DAYS to respond 
after the Bill was introduced). For a more decidedly 
pro-environmental bias, the following is an interesting summary:

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pressrelease.cfm?ContentID=4785

and, if anyone wishes to actually contact their representatives, the 
following website makes it absurdly easy to do so, even if you have 
no idea who they are:

http://www.nrdcaction.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=53045

We now return you to your regularly scheduled postings. ;-)

Peace,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/leps-l/attachments/20050928/99339c26/attachment.html