Below, for anyone interested, is part of a new posting from an 
Off-Highway-Vehicle forum about the Endangered Species Act.  Those who want to gut the Act 
are working hard.  And it's clear that Pombo's bill is just their first step.

Cindy

***

Call Your Congressman Monday and Tuesday // Help Fix The ESA

Don’t fail to do your part.

House Resources Committee To Vote On ESA Wednesday September 21st. 

You can make a difference -- Help Fix The Endangered Species Act

*****You’ll love the new bill. It is greatly improved over the first June 
draft. 

*****Call Your Congressman Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 19-20

You May Call Any Congressman At (202) 225-3121

Here Are Some Suggestions For What You Might Say:

-----1. I support and want you to pass the Pombo ESA Update bill. Here are 
some additional reasons:

-----2. Landowners, ranchers and businesses who lose property rights under 
the Endangered Species Act should be properly compensated.

-----3. Recreation advocates, hunters, fishermen and off-highway vehicle 
users should not have their access cut off by the Endangered Species Act. There 
should be no net loss of recreation access.

-----4. I don't want to lose all property rights improvements in the Pombo 
ESA bill by insisting on fixing everything wrong with the ESA in one bill. 

-----5. The future of conservation lies in establishing an entirely new 
foundation for the conservation of endangered species - one based on the truism 
that if you want more of something you reward people for it, not punish them. 
Incentives work better than penalties. 

-----6. Voluntary incentives should be available to landowners and businesses 
to encourage and compensate them for maintaining habitat for endangered or 
threatened species. 

-----7. I support an effort in Congress that will fix the ESA. I understand 
it may take several steps with more than one bill over a year or two to reach 
this objective. It makes sense that all the necessary changes are not likely to 
pass in one piece of legislation.

-----8. I want to support property rights advocates in Congress to get the 
best deal we can get for farmers, business and landowners. I do not support an 
all or nothing approach that could save no landowners.

-----9. The Act must require a plan to recover species before the species is 
listed. The ESA doesn’t require such a plan. Listing species just hurts 
landowners unless there is plan in place to actually recover species and protect 
landowners.

----10. The updated ESA should reaffirm the "takings clause" of the 
Constitution that ensures citizens just compensation for the taking of private 
property.

----11. Species should be managed using "best available scientific 
information", habitat should be designated after a recovery plan is in place and there 
should be extensive coordination with local and state governments before 
listing a species.

----12. Economic impacts and benefits should be considered before the 
designation of critical habitat so we do a better job of recovering species without 
endangering the livelihoods of American families.

----13. Protecting habitat should require an economic impact statement that 
accounts for the impact on landowners and communities.

***




Cindy Hildebrand
[log in to unmask]
Ames, IA  50010

"The river bottoms are extencive rich and Covered with tall large timber, and 
the hollows of the reveins may be Said to be covered with timber Such as Oake 
ash Elm and Some walnut & hickory."  (William Clark)