Congress puts rush on altering Endangered Species Act
By KATHERINE M. SKIBA
Washington – A bid in the House to rewrite the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act has been placed on a fast track this week, spawning hot rhetoric and warring camps.
Advocates of change say they want to modernize an outdated law. They condemn an “Iron Curtain” of regulation and government intrusion into local land-use issues. And they say there’s a trend among landowners dealing with listed animals to “shoot, shovel and shut up” rather than comply with federal rules.
Defenders of the law call it one of the most farsighted and important conservation measures on the books. They say it has saved hundreds of species from extinction and protected habitat for both rare species to use and humans to enjoy.
Regardless of where one sits, things are happening fast. A reform bill considered at a House hearing Wednesday – just two days after being introduced – could be edited and amended today and voted on next week.
Today there are 1,268 domestic plant and animal species – 993 endangered, 275 threatened – covered by the Endangered Species Act. The figures include nine animal and six plant species in Wisconsin, including the gray wolf, Hine’s emerald dragonfly and Eastern prairie fringed orchid.
Both sides in the red-hot debate use statistics to make their point.
Republican Richard Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee, said Wednesday that only 10 of the roughly 1,300 species had recovered to the point that they are no longer considered endangered or threatened.
“A less than one percent success rate,” the California lawmaker complained.
Pombo said the act was “still stuck in 1973, wearing leisure suits, mood rings and collecting pet rocks.” He lampooned the act’s “groupies” who “would have you believe that it is better than ever before.” And he said that charges that his legislation would “gut” or “eviscerate” the act amounted to “tired and inane rhetoric.”
By the numbers
But supporters of the law point to the overall number of species currently protected – more than 1,800, including those covered by international pacts – and say only nine have been declared extinct.
“An astonishing success rate of more than 99 percent,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife. From 1997 to 2001, she directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which implements the act.
Now, largely because of the act, there are wolves in Yellowstone, manatees in Florida, sea otters in California and a host of other successes, she said.
But where she sees victories, critics of the act see red tape, harm to natural-resource industries and a relentless cycle of litigation.
Pombo, one of the lead authors of the new bill, was joined by seven other Republicans and six Democrats as original co-sponsors. Most are from Western states. None is from Wisconsin, where views on changing the act are mixed.
Act may need tweaking
Mark Green, the House Republican from Green Bay who is running for Wisconsin governor, uses the same argument as Pombo and derides the act’s “spotty record of success.”
He argued that the gray wolf in Wisconsin – still listed as endangered – has made such a strong recovery that it poses a risk to farmers and private landowners.
Green said he envisions modifications that let the act meet its core missions – species protection and recovery – while “better protecting the rights and livelihoods of our farmers, ranchers and private landowners.”
Democrat Ron Kind of La Crosse, the only Wisconsin lawmaker on the Resources panel, called Pombo a fair chairman but noted that he “has made it his personal goal to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act as we know it and to make it possible for development to encroach on protected habitat.”
Kind said the act may need tweaking, but believes it’s been highly successful overall. He looks no further than the thousands of bald eagles along the Mississippi when the river begins to freeze in the fall and thaw in the spring.
Kind said he once proposed to President George W. Bush that he stage a photo op there as the president announced the removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list. He said Bush didn’t say much, then changed the subject to college football.
Other suggestions
Tammy Baldwin, House Democrat of Madison, said the act has been the foundation for state programs to protect threatened species, naming the bald eagle as well as the gray wolf, whooping crane, piping plover and Karner blue butterfly.
She believes landowners, nature conservancies and the state government have shown they can “work together and succeed” under the act. “I oppose any attempt to weaken this critical safety net,” she added.
Other House members from the state said they had not taken a position or did not respond to a request for comment.
Lawmakers and observers said the bill essentially would eliminate the “critical habitat” protections for species; give state and local governments a larger say; and protect and “incentivize” private landowners. On the last point, private property owners would be compensated at no less than fair market value of the use proposed by the property owner if development plans were blocked by the act.
Some Democrats, meantime, complained that the 74-page bill was moving too quickly at a time when the Resources panel should be turning its attention to the environmental impact of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
But Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for committee Republicans, noted that in recent years Congress had held at least 45 hearings, here and in the field, on the act. “Any more delay and any more analysis,” he said, “just ends up being paralysis.”