Sneak Attack Against Regulation of Dangerous Snakes Countered in House of Representatives
Guest blogger Peter T. Jenkins is a lawyer and consultant working with the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS), committed to preventing further harm from invasive, non-native plants and animals. He is Executive Director of the Center for Invasive Species Prevention (CISP).
If the federal government cannot regulate huge constrictor snakes that have already invaded twice in Florida, are preying on Endangered Species Act-listed species, can readily invade in other States and have killed more than a dozen people in recent decades, then what can it regulate? This all came to a head in Congress last week.
On Tuesday of last week, the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species learned from a friendly Capitol Hill source that the following day the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, under Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), was going to highlight this issue of regulating invasive snakes as part of his running assault against federal rulemaking. (The September 14th hearing promised an exploration of "How a Broken Process Leads to Flawed Regulations".) The late notice Majority staff gave to Minority staff and the public on the substance of the hearing and the witness list speaks for itself.
Representative Issa’s staff had …
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