For some time now we have known that the Republican Party does not simply represent big oil and big Koch brother—they represent it to the detriment of anybody and everything else. In fact, they almost seem to despise everything else so much they are willing to destroy everything in the hopes of staying in the good graces of big industry. With the ascension of a true idiocracy, Republicans believe they can finally rid us all of 1973’s Endangered Species Act. Former Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell was the author of the act and was recently interviewed by Christopher Ketcham for National Geographic. Dingell doesn’t mince words.
Recently I called up John Dingell to ask him about the outlook for the law he authored. “With this Congress we should be in terror,” he said.
Asked if the Congress could pass the Endangered Species Act today:
“I don’t think I could pass the Lord’s Prayer in that nuthouse,” he told me, referring to Congress. “The ESA was written so that scientific principles would be used to protect species. Science would make the decisions, science would decide the case. Today we have a bunch of antiscience ignoramuses and vicious lying people in Congress. And we’re going to pay a hellacious price.”
The Republican multi-pronged attack on our environment targets any and every government agency that, regardless of their public function or the good they represent, provides even the least resistance to big businesses’ need to expand without actually “innovating.” The Republican Party cannot stop itself as shown by the craven lie Utah’s soon-to-be-former Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz told his constituents when he said he “withdrew” his bill to sell off public lands to the highest bidder.