While freshman congressman Tom Emmer (MN06) is winning the hearts of those impressed by his charm offensive in Selma, Bluestem hopes that they remember his importance in the grand scheme of things isn't in being their nice friend, but as a lawmaker.
However nice Emmer has become as an individual, we remain skeptical when we read passages like the one below from Tom Emmer fields questions at town hall meeting by Eric Hagen in the ECM Press and News:
Emmer said when he and Blaine Mayor Tom Ryan had a discussion about the northern long-eared bat, they wondered, “Who is making the decisions that these animals or plants are endangered and suddenly stop us from doing anything?”
“It’s regulation reform ultimately, but in the meantime we’ve just got to keep fighting every step of the way because our quality of life depends on efficient, affordable and abundant energy and coal is a big part of the answer,” Emmer said.
Rod, a Ramsey resident, took exception to Emmer’s comments about the long-eared bat.
“Those regulations are being put out by biologists, by people who study long-eared bats, and I don’t think that politics has a role in that,” Rod said.
Emmer said this should be a more transparent discussion so people have time to raise objections.
“When it comes to this, I’m sorry sir, but I firmly disagree that a biologist who is un-elected, no matter how great an expert he or she is, gets to make the rules,” Emmer said. “That’s not the way this constitutional republic was created and by abdicating that responsibility, Congress has literally given away that authority and looks what happens. There has to be a balance and I don’t think there is a balance at all. That’s what the elected officials are there for.”
Emmer's flighty facts
We find Emmer's remarks to be disturbing for a number of reasons. First, the long-eared bat has not been determined to be an endangered species. In Protection of bats has minimal effect on area project,s an article published Wednesday, Pines and Lakes Echo Journal reporter Dan Determan writes:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Thursday, April 2, that the northern long-eared bat would be protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, effective May 4.
According to the FWS, the long-eared bat can be found in nearly every state east of Montana, and is found through most of Minnesota. The discussion to list the animal as a threatened species has been ongoing since October 2013.
Determan goes on to report that with the long discussion of the bats' status, roadbuilders and other could plan for the listing of the creature, which is experiencing pressure because of white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection.
Why worry about a bat species? Richard Baker, endangered species coordinator with the Minnesota DNR, explained the benefits humans receive from the flying rodents:
To see its Minnesota population dwindle to zero would have devastating repercussions in the state, as the bats provide an invaluable service simply by eating mosquitoes and other insects.
"Northern long-eared bats eat roughly their weight in insects every night," Baker said. "To put that in terms of dollars for pest control, the estimate is a $5 billion or $6 billion service that bats provide in the United States."
Secondly, Emmer misrepresents the process as somehow closed away from the public. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service originally proposed listing the creature as endangered, but after a long period of review that included three periods of public comment (timeline here), the agency changed the proposed status to threatened.
The agency received over 100,000 comments, so the process doesn't appear to have been conducted in secret.
Earlier this month, the Duluth News Tribune's John Myers reported in Northern long-eared bat gets threatened status:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday said it will protect the northern long-eared bat as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Their populations have already plummeted in several eastern states because of a killer fungus called white-nose syndrome, and the bats face peril across the continent as the disease moves north and west.
The threatened status will help the federal agency develop plans to protect the species, not just through research to find a cure for the disease but also by protecting habitat and reducing other threats that might reduce bat numbers.
But the threatened status also is a nod to the U.S. forest products industry that had balked on full-blown endangered status because the bats raise their young in trees in northern forests in June and July. Loggers and foresters argued that preventing logging to save bats could instead endanger an already economically challenged industry.
Under the federal threatened status it won’t be illegal to accidentally “take” bats when logging or other legal activity occurs. Logging and clearing of trees and brush for activities such as utility lines are specifically allowed under the federal rule.
Wayne Brandt, executive vice president of the Duluth-based Minnesota Forest Industries and the Minnesota Timber Producers Association, said the organizations appreciate that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opted for the threatened listing instead of endangered status, but concerns remain.
“Today's announcement does nothing to address the reality that these bats are in deep trouble only because of white-nose syndrome,” Brandt said in an e-mailed statement. “They are not in any way threatened by ongoing forest management activities in Minnesota or anywhere else. …
Myers notes that the petroleum industry isn't happy about the ruling. Since logging isn't prohibited, Emmer's contention that the bats' protected status will "suddenly stop us from doing anything" must relate to protecting that special interest. The bats are beneficial to another part of Emmer's constituency, Minnesota's farmers. According to one of Myers' sources:
“Bats are a critical component of our nation’s ecology and economy, maintaining a fragile insect predator-prey balance; we lose them at our peril,” said Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a statement announcing the bat protections. “Without bats, insect populations can rise dramatically, with the potential for devastating losses for our crop farmers and foresters.”
Emmer sits on the House Ag Committee.
Founding fathers and science
Finally, Emmer trashes the role of science in the rule-making process, a common conservative talking point against regulation. Apparently, he would want Congress voting on each stressed species, rather than allowing the mechanisms established by the Congressionally-approved Endangered Species Act play out.
Bluestem has to wonder whether Thomas Jefferson, long-serving president of the American Philosophical Society (in 18th-century usage, the "Philosophical" included geology, biology and botany under "Natual Philosophy), would have such hostility toward science. The founding-est father of Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin, founded the American Philosophical Society along with his enlightened friends in the Junto.
As I. Bernard Cohen argued in Science and the Founding Fathers,many of the founding fathers drew from their natural philosophy for analogies for their political philosophy. It's Newtonian, as might be excepted, but certainly not the bluster of an Emmerian.
Bonus Emmer: At National Review, Maggie Gallagher writes in The ‘Party of CEOs’ and Religious Liberty:
To understand that, you have to go back and look at what happened to Target in Minnesota, which gave substantial amounts of money to a political organization that supported Governor Tom Emmer, purely for business-related reasons.
Photo: A long-eared bat, friend to farmers but a foe to our constitutional republic in Congressman Emmer's eyes. Other than that, Emmer is totally Minnesota nice.
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