How Environmental Protection and Individual Liberty Can Work Together

Today’s Environmental Laws: Outdated and Politicized

A healthy environment is critical to human flourishing. Without clean water, air, and soil, people cannot achieve their full potential. But too often, overzealous government bureaucrats and misguided activists have twisted well-meaning environmental laws. The result has been the violation of property rights and other liberties. Two related aspects of modern-day environmental law make this situation worse: it’s politicized, and it’s out of date. Take the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—the premier federal wildlife protection statute. The ESA establishes a two-tiered framework for the protection of wildlife: “endangered” status for the most imperiled species and “threatened” status for those less in danger of extinction. The law prohibits—on pain of significant civil and criminal penalties—the injuring or harming of any endangered species, but it gives federal agencies the discretion to decide how much to protect threatened species.