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Our Mission |
Big government is not simply the size of the budget, or the number of federal programs; it is the role the federal government plays in our daily lives.
We at the Lincoln Heritage Institute will not sit idly by and allow bloated bureaucracies, burdensome tax policies, a failing public education system, an out-of-control regulatory system, and a growing disregard for the rule of law to become an accepted way of life.
Our purpose, through public education, is the revitalization and preservation of our traditional political, social, commercial, and legal environment in which the only limits to achievement are individual ability and effort.
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Listing the Polar Bear Under the ESA
Could Spell Disaster |
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by Peyton Knight
In reaction to the Bush Administration’s deliberation over whether to list
the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act the Natural Resources
Defense Council’s Andrew Wetzler claims: “There’s no reason for them not to
finalize that decision now.”
There are big reasons, one of which may explain the NRDC’s zeal for a rush
to judgment.
The polar bear population has doubled since 1965, from 10,000 to
20,000-25,000 today. Even the World Wildlife Fund, which advocates listing
the bear, in 2006 said there are “at least 22,000 polar bears worldwide” and “the general status of polar bears is currently stable.”
Further, listing the bear could spawn lawsuits and impose economy-crippling
restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Because the ESA makes it a crime
to “harm” a listed animal or its habitat, environmentalists could sue any
public or private entity that emits CO2, which, they claim, causes global
warming and harms the bear. NRDC and others already have successfully sued
under the ESA to stop everything from military training to cattle ranching.
Listing the polar bear would benefit environmental activists, but would
raise energy costs for consumers and harm our economy, while providing few
if any benefits to the bears.
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Lincoln Heritage Institute • lhi@wmis.net
620 Hall Street, Eaton Rapids, Michigan 48827 • Fax: (517) 663-5245
Pennsylvania: 603 North Third Street, Harrisburg, PA 17113
New York: Box 656 Main Street, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569
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