“I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the Endangered Species Act be changed to impose scientific accountability on federal bureaucrats empowered with spending millions of tax dollars to list and control the habitat of whatever species they determine to be threatened,” Rehberg said. “This is why I asked to become a member of the House Resources Committee.  Those of us who are genuinely concerned about protecting endangered species support common-sense reforms, designed to hold this runaway law accountable to sound science and peer review.” 

       Widely deemed a regulatory failure, the law has recovered 12 of 1300 listed species, for a cumulative success rate of .01% (or a 99.99% rate of failure), according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service figures. More than a dozen of the 1300 were listed due to data errors and subsequently removed.

       “For years, as someone who manages natural resources, I’ve been scratching my head over the Endangered Species Act,” Rehberg said. “Every time I hear the phrase, ‘shoot, shovel and shut up,’ I think of the landowners who know that the public discovery of an endangered or even threatened species could force their families to forfeit their land or business or both, with no recompense.” 

       More than 90% of endangered species have habitat on private land. However, poor decision-making, inadequate data, and unbridled power have cultivated regulatory condescension over the owners of most of the habitat: America’s farmers, ranchers, Native Americans, and private property owners.  Research shows that the ESA has created a regulatory atmosphere that prompts land owners to actually destroy species habitat to rid their property of the government regulations that come with endangered species.