Commentary by Marita Noon
Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.
Contact: 505.239.8998, marita@responsiblenergy.org

Link to: Shoot, shovel and shut up!

Greetings!

I am writing to you today in-flight, on my way to Mexico (sent from DFW), where I will be speaking later this week.

This week’s column: Shoot, shovel and shut up! is a bit on the long side. I try to keep it down to 1200-1500 words. Today, I am at nearly 1800. The early readers seem to think it is worth the read. I hope you do too. (I do produce a 900 and 600 word version of each week’s column for newspapers. If you’d prefer to be on the list for the shorter versions, just let me know.)

Shoot, shovel and shut up! deals with the Endangered Species Act and concludes with insights from just-released Congressional Working Group report. Because no one much is thinking about the ESA right now, I presented some history and, I believe, built outraged in the reader’s mind at the injustice of how the law is currently being implemented. Cited an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal written by an environmentalists, I show how even they acknowledge it hasn’t been entirely successful and that ESA has caused economic damage. The current news hook is California’s drought and the farmers who are not getting water to grow our food supply while the life-giving water is washed out to sea in the name of saving the delta smelt.

It is time to revise the ESA. With all the issues facing America, addressing proposed ESA revisions may seem like an odd distraction—until you connect the dots and see how it wreaks economic havoc by preventing development and destroys livelihoods.

Please post, pass on, and/or personally enjoy Shoot, shovel and shut up! Link to: Shoot, shovel and shut up!

Thanks!

Marita Noon, Executive Director
Energy Makes America Great, Inc.
PO Box 52103, Albuquerque, NM 87181
505.239.8998