Property rights in Texas suffered a setback recently when the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department approved an unprecedented expansion of regulatory power under the state’s endangered and threatened species laws

A step back for property rights by Robert Henneke of The Texas Public Policy Foundation. Excerpts:

"the TPWD list of 45 species includes 39 species not currently regulated by the federal government."

"Since 2001, species have been added to the state’s threatened species list five times, with four of those instances featuring the addition of only one species. But TPWD now seeks to indiscriminately place three times that many species onto the state’s lists."

Two of the species overlap with liquefied natural gas operations along the Texas Gulf Coast, calling into question whether regulation of these species will disrupt our energy sector. The proposal provides thin justification and little supporting evidence. There is, instead, only a vague statement that the department utilized a protocol developed by NatureServe, a nonprofit environmental group.

Once a species is added, removal is often a slow and arduous process. For example, even though the federal government found the Arctic peregrine falcon had fully recovered in 1994, it took TPWD another 15 years to remove the species from its threatened animals list.

The TPWD proposal is also duplicative of other state programs. The Texas comptroller’s office already has such a program, which is dedicated to ensuring the federal government “makes transparent listing decisions for species in Texas based on up-to-date and accurate scientific and technical information, with opportunities for meaningful public input.” And unlike TPWD, the comptroller manages to accomplish all this without restricting and penalizing private citizens."