Natural Resources Committee

The Endangered Species Act serves a great cause: to prevent the extinction of any species because of human activity. But as Eric Hoffer warned, "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." Unfortunately, in the last four years, the ESA has become the basis for an explosion of lawsuits seeking to force hundreds of new species listings. Many of these suits are funded at taxpayers' expense, which in turn require federal, state and local agencies to spend even more taxpayer money to respond.

Opening Statement of Chairman Tom McClintock: The Subcommittee meets today in response to urgent protests made by a wide range of state and local governments, farmers, ranchers, public land users and private land owners in response to threatened action by the EPA and the Forest Service to vastly expand their authority over water use at the expense of long established state jurisdictions, rights and prerogatives and in direct violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

Four years ago -- long before the current drought -- the Central Valley suffered from the deliberate diversion of 800,000 acre feet of water promised under the Bay Delta Accord. Instead, it was dumped into the Pacific Ocean for the amusement of the Delta Smelt. This wanton act caused the loss of a quarter-million acres of the most productive farmland in America, it threw thousands of families into unemployment, and it devastated this region. Now, a natural drought has compounded the regulatory drought.

It is well established that Jessie Benton Fremont was one of the earliest and most influential advocates for establishing the Yosemite National Park, in which Mammoth Peak is located.

This summer, the biggest fire in the history of the Sierra Nevada Mountains burned 400 square miles of forest land. The fire left behind an unprecedented swath of environmental devastation that threatens the loss not only of the affected forestland for generations, but sets events in motion that could threaten the surrounding forests for many years to come.