USARK is the hobbyist organization that is actually leading the fight. This thread and others like it are not so much about fighting the law as they are about getting people involved. To that end, this is the proper place to discuss opinions, offer encouragements and vent frustrations. Talking about it leads to awareness.



If you want to get beyond the hysteria you could email USARK about the potential economic impacts. You could also do some research of the animals in question and that alone may help you reach an opinion on the neccessity of this law because the economic impact is not the only thing to consider.



This is from USARK:

"The CBO[Congressional Budget Office] scored S373 over the weekend. They did a poor job and apparently discounted the economic submissions of USARK and other members of the reptile industry. The CBO characterized the economic impact on private business to be “insignificant”. That means below the threshold of $141 million annually. After being given only two business days to respond USARK reported that S373 would destroy approximately $1 billion a year in trade. Five weeks after the submission deadline the CBO issued a score on S373 that admittedly just duplicated the score for HR2811; citing similarities between the bills. No differentiation was made to account for the fact that HR2811 addressed only two species and S373 addressed 9 species. The score did not reflect the fact that the Boa constrictor is one of the most widely held and most valuable reptiles in the country. There is more dollar value in the trade of the Boa constrictor than all the other species combined several times over. USARK is challenging the CBO for an explanation and considers this score fundamentally flawed."



Now I don't know if USARK's estimate of $1 billion is accurate or not but aside from that there are some disturbing elements here concerning the CBO's actions, or lack thereof rather. Namely, that in the 5 weeks time that the CBO took to analyze and revise the economic impact, they reported no difference in impact for S373 versus HR2811. Doesn't that seem strange? HR2811 controlled only 3 species and S373 controls 9 yet the CBO found no difference in economic impact between the two. Among the 6 new species is 1, Boa constrictors, that is more popular than all the others combined. That would suggest that the economic impact should have at least doubled yet the CBO refused to revise their previous study.



For a person who supposedly has no opinion on the matter I think it's strange that your critiques have been disproportionally directed towards the side that is against S373. That makes me think you do have a pro S373 opinion but are just vieling it. If you really don't have an opinion yet there's not much time left to make one. For help with that, allow me to offer USARK's website as a resource to you. Here it is:


http://usark.org/

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