LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: WE NEED GOOD LAW, NOT ECO-TERRORISM

Dear Editor:

The Endangered Species Act, which is now up for reauthorization, should be repealed. It is bad law.

In fact, Wetlands laws, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the entire Environmental Protection Agency and all other environmental laws and agencies ought to be candidates for termination.

The problem is that environmental laws and agencies are the consequence of emotional responses to perceived and real problems, not realistic, carefully crafted plans to solve those problems. Laws such as the Endangered Species Act wouldn't stand the chance of a snowball in a supernova of passing Congress today. Even a Director of the Environmental Protection Agency has said that the law which authorizes that agency is bad law, directing far too much money and effort into the legal system and far too little toward solving problems of pollution. It makes many rich lawyers, few cleanups.

Much of the present effort directed to environmental matters is unconstitutional. There are multiple, direct violations of sections of the Bill Of Rights which justify extensive prison terms for legislators, bureaucrats, agency personnel and enforcement personnel who daily commit massive civil rights violations on US property owners in the name of environmental protection. The effort is entirely coercive, not constructive. The Missouri Department of Conservation would have gone out of business decades ago had it operated in this manner.

Severe, widespread pollution was a major, growing problem until about 1950 and is well documented. Severe, widespread legislative malpractice in environmental matters, and growing environmental tunnel vision and eco-terrorism, characterize the period from about 1950 through the present day. Bad pollution, bad laws, bad activists. Where is the good we were promised?

We need environmental laws. Good laws, not laws that attempt to stop evolution in its tracks and place the burden on property owners to "save" every obscure bug and weed with no regard to cost or property owners' rights. Laws to create and run agencies modeled on the Missouri Conservation Commission as the Commission was prior to about 1980 when it began to drift slowly toward the federal model.

We can do much better with environmental laws, but we can hardly do much worse. I say, scrap all environmental laws on the books now and replace them with rational, effective, reasonable laws that work to everyone's benefit.

William F. Jud

Fredericktown