Protecting the Environment
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Of all the questions which can come before this nation, there is none which compares in importance to the great
central task of leaving this land an even better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a
better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty
of insuring the safety and continuation of the nation.
----------- Theodore Roosevelt, 1908
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I consider myself a conservationist. I believe that the preservation of our natural resources is essential to the welfare of our citizens. I want to preserve the natural beauty of our nation and to provide a healthy environment for our children. This is a goal which I think all conscientious citizens should work towards.
This does not mean that I support the imposition of draconian laws on individuals and businesses in the interest of unproven environmental theories, and I absolutely oppose sacrificing individual rights to intrusive federal overregulation or attempts by international special interests to impose their will on our citizens.
Federal environmental legislation has been used as a tool by special interest groups to interfere with free trade and force their social agenda on local communities all over our country. Farmers and businessmen have been driven into bankruptcy, private citizens have been denied access to resources and free use of their own property, and our entire society has been burdened with the cost of whimsical and unnecessary legislation.
Conservation and the environment are important, but this vital work should be in the hands of the people, not the federal government. The environmental movement has been remarkably successful in recent years. Sadly, too instead of aiming their efforts towards working directly for the good of the environment, through education and private conservation programs, they have spent most of their time and money lobbying the federal government, which has taken more money from the citizens to finance ill-conceived environmental schemes, pass invasive and destructive laws, violate property rights, all the while administering its environmental programs in its usual ham-handed and inefficient manner. If the efforts of environmentalists were turned towards improving conditions in their own communities and actually doing something about the environment rather than lobbying and scare tactics, far more could be achieved.
Today we face the new threat of international special interests which are attempting to use environmental policy as a way of reshaping the world economy to their own benefit. Nations which do far more ecological damage per capita than the United States have targeted us for persecution because of our prosperity and productivity. It is that very prosperity which has given us the luxury to care so much for our environment in the past, and as we continue to prosper, our success should always carry with it an obligation to care for the land in which we live. But it remains our land and our environment and its care should remain in our hands and not be subject to the agendas of international movements who care little for our welfare or our rights.
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