Dear HCN,
Two freshmen Republican
members of Don Young’s House Resource Committee from Arizona are
working day and night to extend that committee’s endangered species
listing moratorium (HCN, 7/24/95). If these men had their way, they
would be publishing menus for cooking the endangered Mount Graham
red squirrel.
Arizona congressmen John Shadegg
and J.D. Hayworth say they want to protect the public from the
effects of the Endangered Species Act. Shadegg’s chief aide, Myron
Ebell, even trashed right-wing House Speaker Newt Gingrich for
having “soft feelings for cuddly little critters.” Ebell is a
former D.C. lobbyist for the American Land Rights Association, a
front for mining, logging and the cowboy socialism of public-land
grazing.
These two politicians claim they are
protecting rural jobs. Even before the spotted owl became
threatened in Arizona, there were only 300 loggers and 900
millworkers here. The truth is industry has virtually exhausted
mill-sized trees here, and modern one-man machines cut, trim and
haul off an entire tree in seconds. While exaggerating lost logging
jobs, they are oblivious to the tens of thousands of Arizonans who
lost their jobs from marketplace shifts at Honeywell, America West,
Samaritan Hospitals, Garrett, American Express,
etc.
These “conservative” congressmen would now
lay waste our environmental, air, and water protection laws, and
overlog and overgraze our deserts and forests. Recreation and
wildlife bring Arizona far larger economic returns. But these
special-interest “conservatives’ cannot comprehend marketplace
economics.
Beth Lyon
Tempe,
Arizona
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Two freshmen from Arizona blasted.
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