Commentary: This Landmark Conservation Bill Has Been an Abject Failure for Fifty Years

Richard Nixon

December 23, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by President Richard M. Nixon. The statute has put enormous power into the hands of bureaucrats at the two federal agencies that administer it – the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). It has also been adroitly used by environmental groups who have sued the federal government under the ESA to stop projects not of their liking through the broadest possible designation of a “critical habitat” for a plant or animal said to be either threatened or endangered.

Read More

State Senator T.J. Shope Says Legislature will ‘Hold the Line’ on Hobbs’s Proposed Budget

Following the unveiling of Gov. Katie Hobbs’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Executive Budget, State Sen. T.J. Shope (R-Florance) stated it was a budget he, and his GOP colleagues in the state legislature, would not support.

“My colleagues in the Senate GOP will not support this budget and its declaration of war on parents. We will not support taxpayer funded scholarship programs for non-citizens. We will not support a repeal of the Border Strike Force at a time when the scourge of fentanyl plagues our people,” Shope tweeted. “We are united and we will hold the line for the Arizona we love.”

Read More

Arizona’s Graduating Class Average ACT Scores Declined in 2022, Missing College-Readiness Benchmarks

The national average American College Testing (ACT) score for 2022 high school graduates fell to 19. 8 out of 36 in 2022, the lowest average score recorded in over 30 years, and Arizona did not escape this decline either. Arizona’s average score was 18.4 in 2022, over a point worse than last year, and ACT CEO Janet Godwin called the downward movement alarming.

“The magnitude of the declines this year is particularly alarming, as we see rapidly growing numbers of seniors leaving high school without meeting the college-readiness benchmark in any of the subjects we measure,” said ACT CEO Janet Godwin.

Read More