Author: Brandon Middleton
Ron Micheli, Republican candidate for the Wyoming governorship, wants states to come up with a better approach to wildlife management:
Micheli said federal influence on wildlife and land management is a "huge issue" and that "no issue affects Wyoming more."
America’s founders intended the states to be "incubators of new ideas," he said, a role they have failed to fulfill in issues ranging from health care to wildlife management to energy development.
"With cap-and-trade, we should be leading the charge," he said.
Micheli said federal wildlife managers eventually listing the greater sage grouse as an endangered species "could shut down this state."
The Endangered Species Act "needs a major overhaul" and Wyoming and other "states need to offer some alternatives," including promoting incentives for landowners to protect threatened animals like sage grouse, Micheli said.
He said the Endangered Species Act has become "about getting us off the public land and taking away our private property rights. Until we change that basic premise of the ESA, we are going to be under its continuing negative influence."
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