🚀 go-pugleaf

Kurt Warner wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, Tim Waldowski wrote:
> 
> > julien@sor.inria.fr (Julien Maisonneuve) wrote:<snip>
> > > I've never heard the democrats push for more "state ownership of the
> > > means of production".
> 
> But they do advocate the confiscation of private property for the public
> good with no compensation...
> <snip>
>
> Currently in N. California the leftists are attempting to confiscate the
> property of a single Timber Company under the guise of the Endangered
> Species Act of the Marbled Marolett (spelling?)... it was shown on C-Span
> yestrerday that the reserve will consist of over 2 million acres of
> federal, public, and private land... The Washington State liberal Rep.
> Norm Dicks (the only Dem. Congressman from Washington) says the private
> land is necessary to the success of the plan to save the species... as was
> reported, only 48,000 acres were from private land. Now tell me... is
> the theft of an additional 48,000 acres reasonable when 2,000,000 are
> already planned to be preserved from fed. and public land...
> 
> Clearly this is an attempt to distroy a private business by leftists...
> <snip>
> 
> also ignore the fact that BIG BUSINESS allies itself with BIG GOVERNMENT
> as BIG GOVERNMENT protects BIG BUSINESS from competition through
> insurmountable regulation...

And in this case the "Big Business," Pacific Lumber, allied itself
with (soon to be ex)Representative Frank Riggs (Republican) in
trying to extinguish the murrelet.

The vote was 257 to 160 in favor of the Dicks amendment; 82
Republicans joined with Dicks in voting against Riggs' proposal.  
Riggs' own party dramatically rejected his promotion of special 
interests dressed up in the guise of private property rights.

The Marbled Murrelet Draft Recovery Plan formulated by the 
US Fish & Wildlife Service emphasizes the importance of these 
acres for marbled murrelet recovery:  "Suitable nesting habitat 
on Pacific Lumber Company lands in Humboldt County, California, 
is the only available nesting habitat for the southern portion 
of zone four [an area which includes northern California].  This 
area is situated in a key area close to the coast with no federal 
lands in the immediate area that are able to provide similar
recovery distributions."

Riggs' defeated amendment provides further evidence that he 
cares more about representing his corporate constituents than 
respecting the sound science that guided the critical habitat 
designation.  He is gambling with the murrelet's survival in 
order to score political points with special interests.

Contrary to Riggs' (and your) assertion that critical habitat 
designation amounts to a condemnation or "taking" of private 
land, the FWS  action does not specifically prohibit logging 
or any other type of land use.

Background information:

Pacific Lumber Company was once an upstanding practitioner of
sustainable forestry.  In 1985, Charles Hurwitz's Houston-based 
holding company, Maxxam Corporation, orchestrated a hostile 
takeover of Pacific Lumber using junk bonds financed by notorious 
securities criminal Michael Milken and his firm, Drexel Burnham 
Lambert.  Almost immediately after the takeover, Hurwitz raided 
the PalCo employees' pension fund and practically tripled the rate 
of cutting redwoods to pay off the loans and junk bonds used to 
finance the takeover.  In "justification" of his actions, Hurwitz
was quoted by Time magazine as telling his new employees, "There 
is the story of the golden rule:  He who has the gold rules."

Concerned citizens and legislators are hoping that the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of Thrift 
Supervision (OTS), through separate actions already filed against 
Maxxam and Charles Hurwitz, can stop the forest from falling victim 
to corporate greed.  This could be accomplished through a 
"Debt for Nature" swap in which the government acquires title 
to the redwoods as partial repayment of the $1.6 billion dollars 
paid by American taxpayers to bail out Hurwitz' failed Texas 
Savings & Loan (United Savings Association of Texas).



(Special thanks to EPIC (mailto:epic@igc.apc.org) for providing 
the above information.)

-- 
Keith G. Wagner             ----------------------------

mailto:keithw@tidepool.com    "Visualize Whirled Peas"
mailto:kgw@axe.humboldt.edu           
                            ----------------------------
         
           http://www.tidepool.com/environment/