“You are going to see farmers going out of business. It will be a big loss for American agriculture.”
The Californian reports:
…When it was passed in 1973, the Endangered Species Act was seen as vital to protecting “charismatic” species like the bald eagle.
“It was apple pie,” Shogren said.
But now, the professor said, the act is being employed to protect varieties of life that strike many as obscure.
Take for example, the five-year-old fight in California over the three-inch nondescript fish known as the “delta smelt,” which is caught up in fresh water pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. The water is treasured by farms in California’s Central Valley, which have long carried the moniker “America’s Salad Bowl” due to their prodigious fresh vegetable and fruit yields…