im writing this as a warning to the industry.. and im sure it will be met with the usual enthusiasm and gratitude that all my other warnings have received.. the usark lawsuit has two parts the arbitrary and capricious and the interstate commerce challenge... the first part is pretty self explanatory.. its challenging the necessity of the listing of the big snakes. the second is the commerce issue... usark is challenging fws claim that 18 usc 42 doenst give fws the authority to regulate interstate commerce... this aspect of the lawsuit as been the part that usark has been focused on heavily... the thing to understand is that the commerce issue isnt directly related to the big snakes... its saying the scope of application of 18 usc 42 doesn't prevent interstate commerce or grant authority fws to prevent it or prosecute people for engaging in interstate commerce with listed aniamls... so if usark wins there case on only the interstate commerce aspect it would mean the following... 1 it would affirm that fws can not impose any restrictions on interstate commerce under the lacey act..2 the big snakes can go across state lines again...3 it would also mean that all the other animals on lacey act; that are on there because they are considered invasive, would also be able to go across state lines... animals such as zebra muscles, asian carp, snake head fish and so on.. i.e animals that are actually invasive... 4.. anyone convicted of a interstate commerce violation via fws and 18 usc 42 will now have an opportunity for appeal.. and 5... if usark only wins on the interstate commerce the big snakes will stay on the lacey act as invasive........ point being the invasive status of the big snakes would remain the same.................................now if the courts rule fws is not given the authority to regulate interstate commerce via lacy act 18 usc 42, fws will have no choice but to seek to get an amendment to the lacey act either through the judicial system or executive order to have the authority to regulate interstate commerce... if fws doent do that any animals currently list or listed in the future will be able to be shipped around the country... and since the vague language in lacey act is what will have lead to this issue for the fws they will seek to have very clear language added, stating their new authority to regulate interstate commerce..personally i think they will do this via executive order... now what will that mean for the animals listed as invasive under lacey act... it will mean that anything listed as invasive will no longer be able to go over state lines again... and if usark only won on the interstate commerce part of the lawsuit the big snakes that were not removed from the lacey act will not be able to go across state lines again... in other worlds we will be right back to square one again after millions spent on a lawsuit.......................as far as i know usark never did much of anything to work on protecting the last big 5 snakes after the first 4 were add... no team of environmentalist, herpetologist, biologist and so on to have a case for when fws decided to add the remaining 5....nor did they do anything to prevent history from repeating itself with fws doing another executive order to add the retics green anacondas... after usark only fought the first lacey act listing by blocking and paying off senators to hold the bill that would go into law and add the first 4 big snakes to the lacey act; fws got irritated and exercised their authority to have the secretary of the interior add the snakes... they were able to do this via executive order 13112 that was put into effect in 1999... it was that executive order that was put into place to bypass the Judaical process when the judicial process was being held up... and usark was pulling the same stunt with hr511 that would have added the last 5 big snakes judicially... the problem was that in the house judiciary committee there was a knowing clause added to hr511 that made it so fws would have to prove that anyone violating they interstate commerce law was doing so knowing... fws worked very hard about 30 years ago to get a knowing clause removed from the lacey act and they were not about to get it back in there.. so hr511 was no threat to the reptile industry and as long as no one was trying to block it or kill it... fws would have no grounds to exercise their authority granted to them from executive order 13112 as long as hr511 wasnt being held up... but once wyatt set up the second hr511 hearing the house NRC... usark lead the entire reptile industry to believe that hr511 was an actual threat... so wyatt claimed another false victory.. and gave the fws the perfect opportunity to do another executive order and thats what happened.. thats how the big snakes were added to the lacey act...........................now im posting all this to try and show that there were a lot of mistakes made in this big snake lacey act issue... and im hoping that the industry will demand that usark do more then just push the interstate commerce issue of their lawsuit.... if usark doesnt focus on getting the big snakes removed the industry will be right back where it started and fws will walk away with even more authority...

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