CapitalPress.com
6
September 9, 2016
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
Opinion
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Editorial Board
Publisher
Editor
Managing Editor
Mike O’Brien
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O UR V IEW
Immigration issue won’t be decided in White House
I
llegal immigration is at
the forefront of this year’s
presidential election.
Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump have different views on the
issue. We don’t agree completely
with either candidate. It’s unlikely
Congress will either, and that’s the
real test.
We must acknowledge the
truth about the 11 million illegal
immigrants living inside the
United States.
Most are hardworking, earnest
people who came to this county to
escape crushing poverty that most
of us could not imagine. We would
do the same if our situations were
reversed.
Their labor is vital to
agriculture and processing.
Some are dangerous criminals.
Most are not. All, whether they
overstayed their visa or sneaked
across the border, have violated
the laws of the U.S. By purchasing
and presenting false documents to
gain employment, assuming false
identities and lying on government
forms, they have committed state
and federal crimes punishable by
prison terms and fi nes.
Trump says he will enforce
current law.
Trump pledges to deport the so-
called criminal aliens, the million
or so illegal immigrants with
criminal convictions. He wants
go and apply to re-enter under a
law revising current limits. There
is no practical provision in current
law for fi nding and deporting 11
million people. His plan to mandate
the E-Verify system — forcing
illegal immigrants to “self-deport”
by removing their ability to work
— has been proposed and rejected
by Congress.
Clinton wants to focus
deportations on criminal
immigrants and those posing a
violent threat.
She pledges to introduce
comprehensive immigration reform
that includes a pathway to “full and
equal” citizenship. It will end rules
requiring illegal immigrants who
leave the country from having to
wait three to 10 years to get back in
and get legal residency.
She supports President
Barack Obama’s executive order
those caught entering illegally to
be repatriated. The president has
this authority.
Trump wants to build a wall on
the southern border. Federal law
already requires the construction
of a 20-foot-tall, border fence, but
in 10 years only 600 miles have
been built. Congress is unlikely
to fi nish it, or authorize Trump’s
wall.
Trump says there will be no
amnesty or path for citizenship for
illegal immigrants. Everyone must
granting deferred deportation
and legal work status to 5 million
illegals and pledges to expand
the program if Congress doesn’t
pass comprehensive reform. The
president lacks that authority.
But for all of Trump’s bombastic
rhetoric and Clinton’s earnest belief
in continuing the Obama legacy,
neither candidate will decide the
fate of the 11 million.
The occupant of the White
House has the bully pulpit, but no
power to do anything but enforce
the law. The authority to reform
those laws rests at the other end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, with
Congress.
We can’t help but notice that the
issue has received scant attention in
the campaigns for open Senate and
House seats. Everyone with a stake
in immigration policy would do
well to turn their attention there.
ESA bureaucrats twisted law
with expanded ban on ‘takes’
O UR V IEW
Free flow of information missing
from Washington wolf policy T
Known Washington wolf packs
M
By JONATHAN WOOD
For the Capital Press
(As of June 15)
Confirmed pack
4
N
Okanogan
20
20
20 miles
5
3
9
2
Spokane
Wenatchee
1
Tacoma
90
15. Goodman
Meadows
16. Dirty Shirt
17. Skookum
18. Carpenter
Ridge
19. Tucannon
82
Courtesy of Wash. Department of Fish and Wildlife
“That has no place in this
discussion at all,” she told our
reporter afterward.
The tragedy of recent events
is magnified by the fact that the
state spent $800,000 to reboot its
wolf advisory group in an effort to
Pasco
e
nak
R ive
r
19
NOTE: Polygons represent estimated ranges for known
wolf packs with radio-collared animals. Circles represent
generic ranges for packs that have no collared wolves.
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Source: Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
The Washington State Department of Fish
and Wildlife is removing members of the
Profanity Peak pack, but only releasing
information once a week, causing a void.
395
lumb
Co
outside of Washington
River
8. Nc’icn
9. Whitestone
10. Huckleberry
11. Stranger
12. Wedge
13. Smackout
14. Salmo
S
* Dens
195
90
WASHINGTON
Wolf pack names
Teanaway
Lookout
Loup Loup
Beaver Creek
Strawberry
Profanity Peak
Sherman
10
2
90
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
17
18
97
Seattle
Olympia
15
16
11
101
2
13
6
7
8
2
5
101
14
12
Bellingham
ia
anaging wildlife —
especially hot button
predators such as wolves —
requires total openness on the part of
all parties. Ranchers, conservationists,
members of the public and even
critics need to have access to timely
and accurate information.
By trying to manage information,
offi cials in Washington state are
creating a void that has been fi lled by
rumors and misinformed opinions.
The folks at the Washington State
Department of Fish and Wildlife have
found that out the hard way.
They established a policy of
releasing information once a week
about their efforts to remove the
Profanity Peak wolfpack after it
repeatedly killed cattle in the area.
It could be expected that some
opponents of removal would not like
the removal decision. The fact that the
agency choked off information about
the management efforts only infl amed
those passions.
Others, including a Washington
State University carnivore researcher,
jumped into the fray, providing
“facts” that weren’t accurate and
further fanning the fl ames.
As a result, the ranchers and the
wildlife managers have even received
death threats and WDFW had a full-
on crisis on its hands.
We rarely agree with what the
Center for Biological Diversity says
about wolves, but at a recent rally one
of the group’s representatives made
sense.
The center’s Amaroq Weiss told
others at the rally that nobody should
be threatened.
open a civilized discussion of wolf
management.
The members of the group
— representing ranchers,
conservationists and others —
were ultimately able to forge
a working relationship. They
even developed a new policy for
removing wolves that repeatedly
kill livestock.
All of that hard work is now at
risk.
The free flow of timely and
accurate information is the only
way to restore any level of trust in
the department, its policies and its
managers.
The WDFW must provide
information on wolf removal and
other developments when they
happen and let everyone know
why.
O UR V IEW
Overtime legislation could shrink paychecks
C
alifornia
legislators have
set up a cascade of
unintended consequences
with their proposal to
require farmers to pay more
overtime.
Now sitting on Gov.
Jerry Brown’s desk is a
bill, AB 1066, that would
require farmers to pay
farmworkers time-and-a-
half after 8 hours of work a
day or 40 hours a week.
Currently, they are
required to pay overtime
after 10 hours of work in a
day or a 60-hour week.
One consequence is
readily apparent.
Because the bill — the
fi rst of its kind in the U.S.
— will not create money
or increase prices for the
crops that are grown and
harvested, farmers will be
squeezed fi nancially. They
will be forced to devise
ways to get the work done
without a massive increase
in their labor costs.
That means some
farmworkers will lose
hours. Or it could mean
hourly pay rates will be cut.
Or that fewer farmworkers
will be hired. Or farmers
will rely on more
mechanization. Or farmers
will go out of business.
In spite of such
economic realities, some
farmworkers believe the
legislation will increase
the size of their paychecks.
They see it as a recognition
that they ought to be treated
the same as any other
worker in California.
The problem: farming
isn’t like any other
industry. Crops must be
harvested within a narrow
time frame as they ripen.
That can mean long days.
To say farmworkers must
work an 8-to-5 schedule is
unrealistic.
AB 1066 already
has some farmworkers
worried. They see the bill
as a politically motivated
promise that will ultimately
hurt them and their
families.
Dairy worker Juan
Valencia told the
Associated Press that he
fears his hours will be cut,
reducing the size of his
paycheck.
“They make it sound
pretty. It’s not going to
be pretty at all,” he said.
He fears he’ll have to fi nd
another job to support his
wife and children.
The governor would
do well to reject AB 1066.
He should know that the
unintended consequences
of the legislation will more
than offset any hoped-for
benefi ts.
he late Justice Antonin
Scalia once described
the Endangered Species
Act as imposing “unfairness
to the point of fi nancial ruin
— not just upon the rich, but
upon the simplest farmer who
fi nds his land conscripted to
national zoological use.”
His comment resonates
with far too many landowners
across the United States. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice, the agency charged with
implementing the statute, has
needlessly and illegally ex-
panded the application of the
statute’s most burdensome
provision, harming both prop-
erty owners and species.
The target of Justice Scal-
ia’s criticism was the Endan-
gered Species Act’s “take”
prohibition, which broadly
forbids any activity that af-
fects a single member of a
protected species or its hab-
itat. This incredibly burden-
some provision bars a wide
range of ordinary land uses,
and subjects anyone who vi-
olates it to costly lawsuits,
substantial fi nes, and even im-
prisonment.
When Congress passed the
Endangered Species Act, it
was surprisingly candid in its
recognition of how extreme
the impacts on property own-
ers could be. Sen. John Tun-
ney of California, the fl oor
manager of the bill, acknowl-
edged that this is a “stringent
prohibition.” He wasn’t kid-
ding!
The prohibition is so broad
that many apparently innocent
activities can run afoul of it, as
Skylar Capo, an 11-year-old
Virginia girl, learned several
years ago, when her family was
issued a fi ne after she rescued
a protected woodpecker from a
cat and nursed it back to health.
Catching a protected spe-
cies, regardless of the reason,
is prohibited. You can even
violate the take prohibition by
getting near protected species.
Or not so near: The protections
for one whale species criminal-
ize surfi ng within fi ve football
fi elds of the animal.
Further extending the prohi-
bition’s reach is that it applies
even if you didn’t intend to
cause any adverse impact to the
protected animal or even know
that you might.
Recognizing the severe
consequences this broad pro-
hibition can have, Congress
expressly limited its applica-
tion to “endangered” species
— those in immediate danger
of extinction. The Endangered
Species Act does not automat-
ically extend the take prohibi-
tion to “threatened” species,
which face only remote risks.
This distinction was intention-
al. As Sen. Tunney explained,
Congress intended that the take
prohibition “be absolutely en-
forced only for those species on
the brink of extinction.”
However, the Service
Guest
comment
Jonathan Wood
thought it knew better than
Congress. Shortly after the stat-
ute was enacted, it adopted a
regulation categorically extend-
ing the take prohibition to all
threatened species. Ever since,
property owners across the
country have borne the brunt of
this regulation, without the Ser-
vice ever attempting to justify it
or its ruinous costs.
Recently, the Washington
Cattlemen’s Association, rep-
resented by Pacifi c Legal Foun-
dation, fi led a petition calling
for the Service to repeal this
regulation. The petition notes
that repealing the illegal regula-
tion will benefi t not only prop-
erty owners but also protected
species. This is because the
illegal regulation signifi cantly
undermines the incentives for
conservation.
The take prohibition, if
properly limited to endangered
species, would act as a car-
rot and a stick to spur private
conservation efforts. Property
owners whose lands contain
endangered species would have
a strong incentive to aid in their
recovery. If a species improved
to the point that its status could
be changed from endangered
to threatened, the take prohibi-
tion would be lifted, rewarding
property owners for their ef-
forts.
Similarly, property owners
with threatened species on their
land would have an incentive
to conserve them, lest they be-
come endangered and subject
to the take prohibition.
Far from encouraging con-
servation, the regulation adds
further disincentives for prop-
erty owners to assist in species
improvement. Any effort to aid
a threatened species could itself
run afoul of the take regulation;
so a property owner who in-
vests resources in recovery ef-
forts ironically runs the risk of
environmental lawsuits, and
even fi nes or imprisonment,
for accidentally violating the
take regulation.
How many property own-
ers would accept all of these
perils if they receive nothing
in return?
Perhaps this explains why
the Endangered Species Act
hasn’t lived up to its goal of
recovering species. Since it
was enacted more than 40
years ago, fewer than 2 per-
cent of protected species have
recovered to the point that
they no longer need the stat-
ute’s protections.
Repealing the illegal regu-
lation, and restoring the stat-
ute’s primary incentive for
conservation, will hopefully
turn this around, while reduc-
ing regulatory burdens for the
property owners contributing
to species’ recovery.
Jonathan Wood is an
environmental attorney with
Pacifi c Legal Foundation.