Controversial Attack on Endangered Species Act May Backfire

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Controversial Attack on Endangered Species Act May

Backfire

 

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http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2078

 

by Christopher Getzan (bio)

 

Draft legislation that would effectively hobble the

Endangered Species Act may have the inadvertent effect

of mobilizing conservationist forces – including some

Republicans – to stand fast behind the ESA.

 

 

Jul 12 - A new bill being drawn up by Republicans on a

key House Committee may severely curtail the

government's power to enforce the Endangered Species

Act (ESA) and eventually do away with the landmark

law.

 

A recently leaked draft of the planned legislation

suggests Republicans wish to replace the 32-year old

Act by narrowing the kinds of data used to define

threatened or endangered species; tweaking the law's

definition of " conservation " so that full recovery of

at-risk species from possible extinction is no longer

its goal; and eventually " sunset " all provisions of

the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by no later than

2015. The draft was made public by Endangered Species

& Wetlands Report.

 

By environmentalists' accounts, the ESA's neglected

list of species is missing hundreds of plants, animals

and habitats in need of protection.

Titled the " Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery

Act of 2005, " the draft bill's controversial changes

to the widely hailed environmental legislation also

include exempting government actions that could

further harm endangered species from independent

agency review, and omitting from the category of

potentially harmful invasive species those that are

reared or cultivated for " food or fiber or other human

use. "

 

Republican members of the House Resources Committee,

which has legislative and funding oversight of the

Endangered Species Act, are behind the new

legislation. Insiders all agree that committee

chairman and longtime critic of the ESA, Richard Pombo

(R-California), is the draft bill’s driving force.

 

Enacted in 1973, the Endangered Species Act requires

that the federal government protect all species " in

danger of extinction throughout all or a significant

portion of [their] range, " as well as threatened

species, or those " likely to become endangered in the

foreseeable future throughout all or a significant

portion of [their] range. "

There are currently 1,246 species of fish, plants, and

wildlife on the endangered species list. While just 25

species placed on the list in the history of the ESA

have managed to make it off as " recovered, " only nine

listed species have gone extinct, and many scientists

and environmental groups consider this ratio a

successful one.

Critics of the Act – including some conservative

politicians and industrialists – consider the lack of

fully recovered species a sign that the ESA is

ineffective and wrong-headed.

While some conservationist groups have begun an online

letter writing campaign to stave off the impending

Recovery Act, a spokesperson for the Republican

leadership of the House Resources Committee said that

the leaked draft is " an old document. " Because it is

" still evolving, " said Bryan Kennedy, the final draft

may come to resemble something more agreeable to

environmentalists and Democrats when it is introduced

in either late July or early August.

Pombo's office released a report in May that, while

critical of the ESA, was much milder in contrast to

the draft Recovery Act.

Kennedy would not provide The NewStandard an updated

draft, however.

Among its more significant changes, the leaked draft

calls for the research used in making determinations

for endangered or threatened species be based on what

the Secretary of the Interior determines as the most

" relevant. " Environmentalists say this provision could

potentially invite political or corporate interests to

overrule scientific judgments. In addition, other

federal agencies would be able to ignore the impacts

of historic or even current ESA decisions when

evaluating information about a threatened or

endangered species.

Another section of the Recovery Act loosens the

definition of " conservation " in the original

Endangered Species Act, making it possible to construe

that federal agencies are only required to " protect, "

or maintain current endangered or threatened species

populations, rather than work to fully rehabilitate

them.

The most dramatic change is found in Section 24 of the

draft, which would submit the ESA and obligations to

the bill to a " sunset clause " in October of 2015,

effectively killing the law.

" The bill contains at least seven proposals, each of

which would cripple the federal effort to help

endangered species, " Defenders of Wildlife President

Rodger Schlickeisen said in a statement. " It also

creates a whole new series of loopholes that enable

oil companies, large-scale developers, timber

companies, mining corporations, and other special

interests to dodge the Act’s protections. The bill

runs counter to the very intent of the Endangered

Species Act, which was put in place to ensure that

human activity does not cause wildlife to go extinct. "

Jim Sims, former director of communications for Vice

President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force and current

head of Partnership for The West, a nonprofit

organization that provides network and issue

orientation for numerous businesses and groups that

advocate for property owners, says the draft bill will

permit greater flexibility in working with commercial

interests. The " great majority " of such parties, Sims

told TNS, " want to do the right thing " when they find

endangered species on land they wish to develop or

use.

" There are those who don’t want the Endangered Species

Act updated under any circumstances, " Sims said. " If

you care about recovering species, there is no way you

can argue the Endangered Species Act doesn’t need to

be improved. "

Critics of such changes, asserted Sims, only care

about keeping land from being used for development and

industrial purposes, rather than aiding endangered or

threatened species.

However, many environmentalists and conservationists

are themselves critics of the ESA in its current form.

By environmentalists' accounts, the ESA's neglected

list of species is missing hundreds of plants, animals

and habitats in need of protection.

The mainstream League of Conservation Voters has given

Pombo’s environmental voting record an average rating

of just 3 percent for the last congressional term.

Liz Godfrey, Program Director for the Endangered

Species Coalition, a national umbrella group of

scientific and citizens’ organizations, says the ESA

requires even more funding for species listing

purposes to be more fully effective.

Godfrey's position appears to be supported by the

committee’s ranking Democrat as well. In an April

statement, Representative Nick Rahall said reforming

the currently hobbled ESA instead of fully funding it

was " like putting the patient under the knife when all

he needs to do is eat better. " According to Rahall,

" The blame [for ESA's failures] rests on decades of

shortsighted policy and actions, and scarce funds

supplied by the Congress. "

Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for

Biological Diversity, said that the

" sixty-four-thousand dollar question " for

conservationists is just what Rep. Pombo has in mind

if he submits a bill that would be unlikely to pass

the gauntlet of Committee Democrats in its current

form. In fact, Pombo's office released a report in May

that, while critical of the ESA, was much milder in

contrast to the draft Recovery Act.

" Democrats and moderate Republicans [could] say that

they're tired of Pombo's chest beating over the

Endangered Species Act, and go and write their own

bill, " said Suckling. " A lot of Republicans are sick

of getting beat up by Pombo over the Endangered

Species Act. "

Recent findings by the Government Accountability

Office, Congress's investigative and auditing agency,

were considerably less sweeping in their

recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the

law. In April, the GAO recommended that the Department

of the Interior and the US Fish and Wildlife Service

(USFWS) make periodic reviews of spending allocations

to ensure the animals and habitats in most danger are

receiving the funding they should.

A month later, GAO testimony to the Senate on problems

executing ESA prerogatives highlighted instances of

creative cooperation between USFWS and normally less

conservation-minded federal agencies like the

Department of Defense, and recommended government

organizations work harder and communicate better to

ensure more cost-effective and less bureaucratic

implementation of the ESA.

Though Rep. Pombo has been clamoring to overhaul the

ESA since arriving to Congress in the mid 1990s, he

was nonetheless elevated to the chair of the House

Resources Committee by House GOP leaders in 2004. Many

environmental groups suspicious of his motives

criticized his ascension to the chairmanship.

The mainstream League of Conservation Voters has given

Pombo’s environmental voting record an average rating

of just 3 percent for the last congressional term.

Meanwhile, Pombo has been a steady recipient of

largesse from the dairy industry, agribusiness, real

estate interests, and energy companies – all

industries in need of unencumbered access to large

swathes of land.

Pombo's legislative work has also been lauded by

organizations within the so-called " wise use "

movement, a loose assemblage of conservative

politicians, " free market " advocates, big ranching

interests and resource extraction companies. Wise

users – also known as " land rights " advocates – are

dedicated to shaking off what they consider to be

burdensome federal regulations governing the use of

private and public lands, epitomized by those found in

the ESA. In fact, some of the criticisms of the ESA

contained in Pombo's May 2005 report parrot

traditional complaints wise users level against the

Act.

Though Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity

considers the draft of the Recovery Act " completely

consistent with every bill [Pombo has] submitted "

related to the ESA, he recalled that Pombo had been

talking about reaching out to more moderate

Republicans on ESA issues. " If he had done so, "

Suckling said, " [that] bill would've had much more of

a chance of succeeding. I think Pombo has shot himself

in the foot, and there are few people on the right or

the left who will want to be associated with the bill.

According to multiple sources close to the original

leak, it was a disgruntled Republican lawmaker who

originally revealed the controversial draft version of

the Recovery Act to the media and conservationists.

" The [Committee] Democrats are more charged up than

I've ever seen before, " commented Suckling. " I think

[the Pombo bill has] energized the pro-Endangered

Species Act people. "

© 2005 The NewStandard. See our reprint policy.

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