ABSTRACT
If the conservative majority in Congress have their way, the newest political scapegoat may in fact be a goat. Or if not a goat, then maybe a bear, or a condor, or an owl. In the current anti-government congressional atmosphere, a powerful coalition of ranchers, developers and manufacturers has taken aim at the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). This coalition, calling itself the wise use movement, maintains that one of America’s chief impediments to economic growth is our national obsession with wildlife protection. The wise use movement maintains that the wisest use for our natural resources is maximum extraction, and that environmental policies must be rolled back to enable such usage and extraction.
