The bureaucratic process involved in moving plants and wildlife onto the Endangered Species Act list has devolved over the decades into an acrimonious court feud between champions of the country's imperiled species and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administrators charged with protecting them. Candidate species have lingered for years on the government's docket. Concerned citizens' groups have sued to get them attention. Then, in the course of responding to those lawsuits, the service has spent more time on litigation than biology. As a result, delays lengthened and more lawsuits were ... Read More
The Magic of Re-reinventing Government
December 15, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Last summer I got pick-pocketed in Chicago. I was walking back to my hotel room after dinner when, mid-block, I reached down, found nothing where my wallet should have been and went straight to panic mode. Thanks to FedEx and my passport, I was able to make it onto an airplane and back to the West Coast, where the pocket-picking gave me a delayed lesson in governmental competence, via the seemingly simple and parallel tasks of replacing a Social Security card and a driver's license. The Social Security office in Santa Barbara, Calif., is located in an outdoor mall downtown, but it's not at ... Read More
