Threatening Endangered Species From Recovering
Kucinich gave the following speech in Congress on September 29, 2005:
"Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to the Threatening Endangered Species From Recovering Act.
"This legislation, as many of us know, will do nothing to improve our ability to help species recover. As a matter of fact, this legislation will repeal all Endangered Species Act provisions that protect threatened and endangered plants and wildlife from the harmful impact of pesticides.
"Let us focus on this for a moment. Every schoolchild in America is aware that pesticides are threatening to birds. Our own national symbol, the bald eagle, is threatened with the provisions of this bill that would repeal the pesticides provisions that currently exist and which help protect endangered species. We would not spray pesticides on a bald eagle, would we? And if we would not do that, why would we vote for this bill? Pesticides have played a large part in the decline of many species, including the bald eagle.
"The bald eagle is the symbol of our national unity. There is something about the Endangered Species Act which represents something even greater than talking about plants and wildlife. There is a recognition that plants and wildlife and human beings are all part of the same interconnected process; that we are interdependent; that we are all one. To act as though plants and wildlife and insects are just here for our use, for our commercialization, for our disposal actually rejects our own humanity. There are deeper questions here about who we are as human beings that are reflected in legislation like this.
"I could talk for a while about how this bill is going to provide giveaways to developers at the expense of wildlife and endangered species. I could talk about how it is going to require the government to use taxpayer dollars to pay big developers to not violate the Endangered Species Act. I could talk about how this Threatening Endangered Species From Recovery Act would call for a tentative schedule for developing recovery plans for species that are currently protected. I could talk about all that, but I want to stress that what we are really doing here in voting for this bill is rejecting the whole idea of interdependence and interconnection; rejecting the idea of a bald eagle which stands for national unity and that we are all together."
[Ed. note: The amendment was agreed to by recorded vote: 229 - 193 (Roll No. 506).]
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