The Property Rights Report
- from the American Property Rights Coalition
- [email protected]
Legislation Proposed to Rein in Endangered Species Act Abuse
March 2025
Legislation Proposed to Rein in Endangered Species Act Abuse
The ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R.1897) would improve conservation efforts, streamline regulatory processes, and enhance transparency and accountability in species protection. The bill aims to balance species conservation with regulatory efficiency and property rights while maintaining ESA’s core mission. Key changes include revised definitions, prioritization of conservation resources, increased incentives for private land conservation, and updates to recovery plans and permitting processes. A hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled for March 25th.
Specifically, the bill:
• Expands the definition of “best scientific and commercial data available” to include data from state, Tribal, or county governments.
• Establishes a “habitat” definition that excludes areas incapable of supporting all life stages of a species.
• Requires the Services (FWS & NMFS) to consider conservation agreements when deciding species listings.
• Streamlines the permitting process for voluntary conservation agreements by exempting them from certain environmental reviews.
• Mandates incremental recovery goals for threatened species, reducing regulations as goals are met.
• Allows states to submit recovery strategies for threatened species.
• Prohibits judicial review for five years after a species is delisted.
• Ensures regulatory certainty for private landowners managing species under conservation plans.
• Requires public online access to scientific data used for species listings and habitat designations.
• Mandates economic and national security impact analyses for species listings (without altering listing criteria).
• Caps attorney fees for ESA-related lawsuits.
• Limits requirements for fully mitigating species impact in federal projects.
• Restricts the Services’ authority to regulate lawful activities (e.g., vessel speed limits) aimed at reducing potential species impacts.
Lest We Forget - Property Rights Undergird Our Economic Prosperity
From the 2025 Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom:
EPA Floats Sweeping Energy Deregulatory Agenda
In a massive deregulatory push, Trumps EPA will examine 31 major energy-related regulations. Topping the list is the bogus CO2 endangerment finding which is the linchpin for climate change regulation. Other regulations on the list include CO2 and mercury limits on power plants and Biden’s back-door EV mandates.
Deregulation is not a done deal. There is significant need for engagement from the grassroots. There will be many formal rule-making processes with public involvement. This is the time to inform the process and give the cover for EPA and other agencies to capitalize on these lofty objectives. Those who have prior engagement on any if these regulations should be prepping to reassert their initial arguments against them. Also, for items such as the endangerment finding there needs to be science and data from multiple sources to equip the record for a reasonable path forward without calling CO2 a pollutant. The powder is dry, the cannons are prepped, but the battle has not yet started. There will be opportunities, let's not waste them.
Biden EPA’s “Trump Insurance” Program Donates Billions to Dems
Did you get your Trump Insurance payment yet? Probably not, unless you are a Democrat Party loyalist. Anyway, it’s too late now. The program ended on January 20, 2025.
Everyone expects some degree of graft and corruption in government, but this goes way beyond the “I’ll help you if you help me” scenario. Waste and theft of taxpayer dollars to this degree is felonious, evil, and immoral. If you are not livid, you are either asleep or complicit.
If You Think Environmentalism Is About the Environment, Joke’s On You
Unfortunately, the EPA payouts described above are just the latest examples in a long, sorry history in which money is shown to be the beating heart of environmentalism. No money, and a lot of the mischief perpetrated in the name of environmentalism would go away. Follow the money. The corruption is deep and pervasive. In recent weeks and months:
TurmpWatch
March 2025
Legislation Proposed to Rein in Endangered Species Act Abuse
The ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R.1897) would improve conservation efforts, streamline regulatory processes, and enhance transparency and accountability in species protection. The bill aims to balance species conservation with regulatory efficiency and property rights while maintaining ESA’s core mission. Key changes include revised definitions, prioritization of conservation resources, increased incentives for private land conservation, and updates to recovery plans and permitting processes. A hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled for March 25th.
Specifically, the bill:
• Expands the definition of “best scientific and commercial data available” to include data from state, Tribal, or county governments.
• Establishes a “habitat” definition that excludes areas incapable of supporting all life stages of a species.
• Requires the Services (FWS & NMFS) to consider conservation agreements when deciding species listings.
• Streamlines the permitting process for voluntary conservation agreements by exempting them from certain environmental reviews.
• Mandates incremental recovery goals for threatened species, reducing regulations as goals are met.
• Allows states to submit recovery strategies for threatened species.
• Prohibits judicial review for five years after a species is delisted.
• Ensures regulatory certainty for private landowners managing species under conservation plans.
• Requires public online access to scientific data used for species listings and habitat designations.
• Mandates economic and national security impact analyses for species listings (without altering listing criteria).
• Caps attorney fees for ESA-related lawsuits.
• Limits requirements for fully mitigating species impact in federal projects.
• Restricts the Services’ authority to regulate lawful activities (e.g., vessel speed limits) aimed at reducing potential species impacts.
Lest We Forget - Property Rights Undergird Our Economic Prosperity
From the 2025 Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom:
- Each of the measured aspects of economic freedom plays a vital role in promoting and sustaining personal and national prosperity, but all are complementary in their impact, and progress in one area can easily reinforce or even inspire progress in another. Similarly, repressed economic freedom in one area (for example, a lack of respect for property rights) can make it much more difficult to achieve high levels of freedom in other categories.
EPA Floats Sweeping Energy Deregulatory Agenda
In a massive deregulatory push, Trumps EPA will examine 31 major energy-related regulations. Topping the list is the bogus CO2 endangerment finding which is the linchpin for climate change regulation. Other regulations on the list include CO2 and mercury limits on power plants and Biden’s back-door EV mandates.
Deregulation is not a done deal. There is significant need for engagement from the grassroots. There will be many formal rule-making processes with public involvement. This is the time to inform the process and give the cover for EPA and other agencies to capitalize on these lofty objectives. Those who have prior engagement on any if these regulations should be prepping to reassert their initial arguments against them. Also, for items such as the endangerment finding there needs to be science and data from multiple sources to equip the record for a reasonable path forward without calling CO2 a pollutant. The powder is dry, the cannons are prepped, but the battle has not yet started. There will be opportunities, let's not waste them.
Biden EPA’s “Trump Insurance” Program Donates Billions to Dems
Did you get your Trump Insurance payment yet? Probably not, unless you are a Democrat Party loyalist. Anyway, it’s too late now. The program ended on January 20, 2025.
- EPA granted over $20 Billion in 2024 to non-profits and NGOs to perpetuate the collectivist UN Climate Change agenda in anticipation of Trump winning election
- Nonprofits are not subject to the same scrutiny as government agencies, making it difficult to track how these billions are being spent
- In 2024, the EPA awarded the Coalition for Green Capital a $5 Billion grant to create an NGO “Green Bank” outside congressional control. Their top executives collectively made hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal political donations to Democratic candidates and organizations
- EPA Special Advisor Brent Efron suggested the program was like “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” (a simile for the Biden Administration heading for disaster) and suggested EPA staff would get great jobs at the recipient organizations in repayment
- EPA Chief Lee Zeldin terminated $20 Billion in grants and Citibank agreed to freeze the funds earmarked for the eight nonprofits (this action is now contested in court)
Everyone expects some degree of graft and corruption in government, but this goes way beyond the “I’ll help you if you help me” scenario. Waste and theft of taxpayer dollars to this degree is felonious, evil, and immoral. If you are not livid, you are either asleep or complicit.
If You Think Environmentalism Is About the Environment, Joke’s On You
Unfortunately, the EPA payouts described above are just the latest examples in a long, sorry history in which money is shown to be the beating heart of environmentalism. No money, and a lot of the mischief perpetrated in the name of environmentalism would go away. Follow the money. The corruption is deep and pervasive. In recent weeks and months:
- Salaries of head honchos at ‘nonprofit’ environmental groups approach or exceed $1 million. Nice work if you can get it.
- More EPA shenanigans: environmental groups on Biden environmental justice council rake in cool $400 million in massive conflict of interest
- Green energy tax breaks and subsidies stuffed inside Biden’s ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will top a trillion dollars over time
- National Science Foundation lavishes $2 million on Brooklyn university institute to push ‘climate literacy and justice’ (We’ll do it for a million and a half. Really.)
- Vermont enacts climate ‘superfund’ racket to shake down energy producers; other blue states salivating at the prospect
- Idaho state pension asset money managers siphon off funds to support climate change and other pet liberal shareholder resolutions
- Children’s Trust bankrolling another phony youth climate suit, this one in Alaska over proposed natural gas pipeline
- how much are those 22-year-old ‘children’ getting paid?
- By the way: Children’s Trust lawsuit claiming state permitting of fossil fuels violates the constitutional rights of young people by worsening the effects of climate change goes down in flames in Virginia
TurmpWatch
- Responding to L.A. wildfires, Trump signs executive order to speed approval of forestry projects to clear brush and remove timber
- Trump orders the immediate expansion of American timber production
- Vermont's Loggers and Sawmills Are Disappearing — and That's Bad News for Forests
- “The U.S. could potentially raise $1 trillion in tax and royalty payments from a pro-mining policy.”
- 1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused by CO2’ – *The Real Environment Movement Was Hijacked*