Policy Orientation 2016

This panel will focus on the efforts to remove species from the endangered species act that are not threatened with extinction and the federal government’s lack of constitutional authority to regulate intrastate species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It is important that valid science plays a significant role in making the ESA listing and delisting decisions, and this panel will discuss the left’s blanket opposition to any lessening of ESA regulation despite current objective, scientific studies.

**This panel is CLE accredited**  

During a recent congressional hearing, Chairman Lamar Smith challenged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to justify her comments that the Clean Power Plan was “enormously beneficial” when it would only avert one one-hundredth of a degree of global warming and cost hundreds of billions of dollars to implement. These kinds of policies raise the question: What benefit should environmental regulations accomplish in order to justify their cost? This panel will discuss ongoing efforts in opposition to the Clean Power Plan, as well as the type and substance of benefits that should result from a proposed environmental regulation.