Mick MacNair - Hodgeman County, KS

We have a grave concern about how this Endangered Species Act and the lesser prairie chicken is going to affect our communities in this area, especially our court houses and county government funding. Oil and gas, wind energy, pipelines, and agriculture all make up a huge part of the revenue that we take in through property taxes. If the lesser prairie chicken goes to an “endangered” listing we are going to lose value of our property, and thus lose taxes. At that point we have a lot of concern about how we are going to fund our county roads and keep them maintained. How are we going to fund our local police departments? How are we going to fund our EMS and fire departments? These are essential government entities. With the loss of revenue this will cost us, we have some very grave concerns.

One of the biggest players in the economies in the area where the lesser prairie chicken is listed as “threatened” and may move to “endangered” is oil and gas. This is how our county governments fund the most essential things in the county. Without oil and gas development we are looking at cutting budgets and cutting services to our people. We need to fight with everything we have against this listing on the lesser prairie chicken and all of the over-regulations due to the Endangered Species Act.