Lawson for Congress

There is hope for the environment, yet we must realize that we are witnessing an unprecedented assault on the earth's ecosystems. In the U.S. and worldwide, fisheries are being depleted, species are going extinct at 1000 times the natural rate, desertification is increasing, water tables are dropping, and millions of acres of rain forests and pristine wilderness areas are being destroyed annually. There are real environmental problems that need to be faced least we bequeath to our children a vastly inferior world than the one we received.

Unfortunately, in facing these challenges, people have placed far too much faith in large central governments as a source of deliverance when governments have so often been the source of destruction. An inflationary, debt-based monetary system encourages people to maximize short-term profits instead of long-term investments that are more aligned with good stewardship. Our federal government subsidizes destructive and wasteful agricultural practices, and preferentially allows well-connected cattle ranchers and lumber companies to profit from public lands at a net loss to the taxpayer.

There has also been a tendency for legislators and bureaucrats to ignore human nature, instead of supporting economic incentives to make it easy for people to do good things. This is why it is so essential that we preserve private property rights if we wish to truly protect our environmental heritage for ourselves and future generations of Americans.

For example, the successes of the Endangered Species Act are apparent to anyone who has watched a bald eagle sweep across the sky or marveled at a grizzly bear ambling across the meadow in Yellowstone. Yet its successes have been limited, and the ESA's hostility to private property rights has perverse unintended consequences. With enormous numbers of endangered species found partially or exclusively on private land, the ESA actually discourages landowners from maintaining habitat for fear that they will be held financially responsible, and will lose their property rights without just compensation.

If we truly want to protect endangered species, we cannot allow the government to take private property without compensation. Incentivizing landowners to preserve habitat would transform endangered species from a liability to an asset. Additionally, with habitat loss far and away the greatest threat to endangered species, buying land for conservation itself is a proven strategy employed by The Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, and other private organizations. Free, prosperous people can also be great preservationists.

Additionally, we need to ensure that the Constitutional rights of states to experiment with environmental policy solutions are protected. Only last year, the EPA prevented California from pursuing tougher tail pipe emission standards at the state level. We need to let individual states pursue and experiment with innovative solutions to the issues of our day. If we have to wait for a full national consensus on every single environmental issue before acting, we will continually squander resources and stifle initiative.

As your Congressman, I will:

• Restrain unelected federal bureaucracies that micromanage and regulate. Instead, government should set standards, potentially measure results, and allow private enterprise find the best way to meet agreed upon standards.
• End corporate welfare in general and specifically corporate subsidies to exploit public lands. We need management strategies to transform our national forests into assets instead of liabilities, thus preserving these irreplacable assets for future generations.
• Empower local initiatives that reward good stewardship and protection of endangered species.
• Return power to state and local agencies, as innovation in conservation is stifled under federal bureaucracies.

Ultimately, we must recognize that the environment, economy, agriculture, and energy are not separate issues. These issues are interrelated, and tied together by the common theme of sustainability. Our overall goal should be community-based sustainability, and I will advance a federal government that respects and empowers local communities. Read more here.