I’m thinking a good amount about this. Right now I’m of the mind the benefit of weakening ESA is to lower costs and increase speed for _new_ property developmen

I’m thinking a good amount about this. Right now I’m of the mind the benefit of weakening ESA is to lower costs and increase speed for _new_ property development. In other words, encroachment on wild lands. When you say “The cost is borne by the property owner, effectively without remuneration.” I think about the property developer who buys next to the garbage dump and then complains about the smell from the dump. It’s adding undue cost to his housing development. Where I’m living now there are several older and abandoned manufacturing properties. I believe buying virgin land and building it to your taste is very attractive compared to trying to shoehorn into someone else’s old building—which you might have to demolish at greater cost. So, no. Right now I don’t think we should fast track the kind of development that needs shortcuts around ESA. Develop somewhere else. Capital investment doesn’t need public help going faster/harder into wild areas. And if the idea of the cost of demolition and toxic building demolition seems insurmountable, consider the communities whose leaders said they will take the toxic garbage from the LA fires, despite the complaints of the people in those communities. Turns out the naysayers lost to the public good. I think wild spaces with wild animals are a public good and should be protected. I enjoy those spaces as they are. Anyway, that’s how I feel about it right now.