{"id":32920,"date":"2011-10-17T20:11:06","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T02:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=32920"},"modified":"2011-10-17T20:11:10","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T02:11:10","slug":"kintigh-is-wrong-about-endangered-species-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/10\/kintigh-is-wrong-about-endangered-species-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Kintigh is wrong about Endangered Species Act"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jay Lininger<\/p><\/div>\n

State Rep. Dennis Kintigh\u2019s Oct. 9 opinion piece<\/a> criticizing the Endangered Species Act demonstrates an unyielding loyalty to the oil and gas industry, a dubious commitment to science and environmental protection, and a clear misunderstanding of the facts.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kintigh complained that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service \u2013 the agency in charge of enforcing the act \u2013 proposes to follow the law by protecting the rare and imperiled dunes sagebrush lizard. He repeated the fear-mongering of U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, who maintains despite facts that \u201cmost\u201d of New Mexico\u2019s oil and gas jobs would be put at risk if the lizards are protected.<\/p>\n

Kintigh\u2019s outlandish claim that lizard protection could \u201cendanger the economic life\u201d of New Mexicans is wrong. The reptile\u2019s habitat makes up less than 1 percent of the Permian Basin oil patch. Moreover, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management withheld less than 1 percent of the acreage it planned to lease to oil and gas companies in the past two years to protect the lizard\u2019s habitat.<\/p>\n

In that period, the BLM Pecos District leased more than 58,000 acres of public land in southeast New Mexico without any lizard restriction. The agency also delivered nearly $21 million in royalty payments to the state government.<\/p>\n

Peer review by independent scientists<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr. Kintigh\u2019s assertion that Fish and Wildlife lacks accountability also ignores the facts. Listing decisions are subject to peer review by independent scientists \u2013 the same process scientific journals use to scrutinize studies before publication. In a recent report to Congress, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Fish and Wildlife uses the best available science in decisions to list endangered species, and its use of external peer review is consistent and reliable.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Mr. Kintigh organized a farce \u201cscience review\u201d of lizard protection by people who lack expertise on the lizard and who had already voiced opposition to the lizard\u2019s listing. The hand-picked \u201cscience\u201d panel included a cowboy museum curator, a livestock rancher and two petroleum geologists who work for the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kintigh\u2019s statement that decisions about endangered species are made without oversight is also incorrect. In addition to undergoing scientific peer review, those decisions are reviewable under federal law that requires judges to set aside actions that are \u201carbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law.\u201d These standards apply to Endangered Species Act listings, and federal judges routinely enforce them.<\/p>\n

Alarmist tales<\/h3>\n

Alarmist tales of economic catastrophe if the lizard is saved from extinction have no basis in reality. They are nothing but talking points in an ideological campaign to undermine federal agencies responsible for protecting the species and ecosystems upon which we all ultimately depend.<\/p>\n

While the oil and gas industry \u2013 whose financial largesse has handsomely benefited politicians like Mr. Pearce and his acolytes \u2013 has a responsibility to maximize profits, it has no such responsibility to the American people or our environment.<\/p>\n

Jay Lininger is an ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity<\/a> in Albuquerque.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State Rep. Dennis Kintigh\u2019s Oct. 9 opinion piece criticizing the Endangered Species Act demonstrates an unyielding loyalty to the oil and gas industry, a dubious commitment to science and environmental protection, and a clear misunderstanding of the facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[147,107,218,116],"class_list":["post-32920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-environment","tag-roundhouse","tag-sand-dune-lizard","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}