William Tauzin: “the biggest absurdity in my mind though, it is a fact that all of these decisions are being made without the benefit of…”

“the biggest absurdity in my mind though, it is a fact that all of these decisions are being made without the benefit of good science. The law right now says that a listing can occur with what is called best available data, B-A-D. Bad science, whatever is available. If you only know a little bit, and that tells you it is endangered, then you have to list it under the current law. You do not need to do the research and find out whether or not, in fact, there are other populations of this animal or plant or insect somewhere else. Mr. Speaker, we are driving, in effect, the whole body of regulations that are becoming increasingly difficult for Americans to live with on the basis of bad science. We do it without public hearings in many cases. We do not consider cost-benefit ratios. We do not consider whether the regulations we impose make common sense. We simply must impose them once that listing occurs on the basis of bad science. Now, you cannot tell me that kind of a law makes good sense, to say that you are going to list something with bad science.”