[MPWG] Lawmakers announce new push to change Endangered Species Act

[Sonya]

Salon.com
Lawmakers announce new push to change Endangered Species Act

Feb. 11, 2005  | Washington -- Four leading GOP House members and 
senators announced a joint effort Thursday to rewrite the Endangered 
Species Act to toughen up habitat and scientific provisions. 
Environmentalists immediately criticized the plan as the latest attempt 
to gut the law.

The lawmakers said it was the first time members of the House and Senate 
had banded together at the beginning of a congressional session to amend 
the 1973 act. Previous attempts to change the law have failed, but they 
said this time they hoped to produce a single Endangered Species Act 
reauthorization bill that could be introduced in both chambers.

"We've been working on this issue for a long time," said House Resources 
Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. "And to have the opportunity 
now to sit down and work across the Capitol and try to come up with 
legislation that does move the ball forward and begins to modernize and 
update the Endangered Species Act is extremely important."

Joining Pombo were Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.; Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; 
and Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. Chafee, among the Senate's most moderate 
Republicans, is a newcomer to the issue who chairs the Senate 
Environment and Public Works Committee's subcommittee on fisheries, 
wildlife and water.

The lawmakers said they had no specific legislative language yet, but 
listed goals including increased involvement by states, more incentives 
for private landowners, and strengthening scientific reviews before 
species are listed or critical habitat is designated.

They contended the law now creates unreasonable regulatory hurdles for 
property owners while failing to help many species.

"Overall we believe that the Endangered Species Act can be less 
contentious and more effective," Crapo said.

Environmentalists said the act works as written.

"For 30 years the Endangered Species Act has been serving as a safety 
net for species on the brink of extinction, and there can be absolutely 
no doubt the act is working, and it's one of the most popular laws in 
the land," said Susan Holmes, senior legislative representative at 
Earthjustice.

"I think if you look at the efforts that we have seen so far from 
Congressman Pombo, from Greg Walden, these efforts have been all-out 
attacks on the Endangered Species Act," Holmes added.

Pombo's committee passed two bills last year to amend the law. One would 
have changed how critical habitat is designated by requiring that such a 
designation be "practicable." The other, written by Walden, would have 
created a peer review board, chosen by the interior secretary, to vet 
scientific information on a species before it could be listed as 
endangered.

Neither bill got a vote on the House floor, and earlier attempts to 
amend the law also went nowhere, including a 1997 effort that cleared a 
Senate committee. Chafee said that bill, which would have given private 
landowners incentives to help preserve species, would be a good starting 
point this time around.

Although President Bush has handed Congress a busy agenda to work on 
over the next two years, and some in Congress may not be eager to take 
on a controversial fight over the Endangered Species Act, the lawmakers 
said Thursday they thought they could get it done.

"If we come together I guarantee you we'll get the floor time," Walden 
said.

More than 1,800 plants and animals are now listed as threatened or 
endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service says about 40 have been taken 
off the list over the years - fewer than half of those because they 
recovered, and the others because they went extinct or for technical 
reasons.
http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2005/02/11/species/print.html

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