After spending most of his legislative career in a (thankfully) fruitless quest to gut the Endangered Species Act, former California Congressman Richard Pombo is back in Washington as a — you guessed it — lobbyist for folks who want to gut the Endangered Species Act.
In a rebroadcast of an earlier interview, aired today on E&E TV [subscription required], Mr. Pombo brought out the old saws of the anti-wildlife crowd: that the Endangered Species Act is not a law that "actually works" and has "been a failure."
The truth is that the federal Endangered Species Act is one of America's most successful environmental laws, helping to save thousands of species of wildlife, fish, and plants from oblivion. And you don't have to take my word for it. Published studies have repeatedly shown that most species protected by the Endangered Species Act show steady improvement (see here and here for example) and the vast majority of protected species — upwards of 98% — are still alive today thanks in no small part to shelter the Endangered Species Act provides.
Mr. Pombo ends his interview by saying that, despite his failure to actually change the law, "I felt great about where we ended up on endangered species." So did we.
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