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Species Bill Advances in Washington

Posted on: Friday, 23 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 23--WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Conservative property rights activist Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, won a key vote Thursday in what could become the first major overhaul of the 32-year-old federal law that seeks to bring endangered plants and animals back from the brink of extinction.

The House Resources Committee, of which Pombo is the chairman, passed the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 on a 26-12 vote at the conclusion of an occasionally contentious two-day hearing.

Eight Democrats voted aye, including bill co-sponsor Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Stockton, and most of the committee's Republicans.

The bill now heads for a vote on the floor of the GOP-controlled House, where it is expected to pass as early as next week. Its prospects in the Senate are less certain.

Passage in the House would put Pombo closer than ever to rewriting the Endangered Species Act, a top goal during his 13 years in Congress.

Pombo says the existing law is ineffective because less than 1 percent of the roughly 1,300 listed species have been recovered while landowners pay the price for a law that he says doesn't work.

"I told the committee members that I was willing to do a lot to protect species as long as property owners are protected," Pombo said following the hearing. "And I'm not talking about the big property owners here. It's the little guy, the guy with 200 acres who will never to come to Washington that I care about protecting."

Environmentalists, however, widely panned the legislation, saying it will turn back the clock on plants and animals, including wolves, sea otters, manatees and bald eagles, which they say have survived and in some cases thrive because Congress approved the original law in 1973.

"The Endangered Species Act is one of our most farsighted and important conservation laws," Jamie Rappaport Clark, vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and the former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the committee.

Under the proposed legislation, federal agencies would no longer designate huge swaths of land as critical habitat for endangered species. In the Bay Area, that could loosen regulations on hundreds of thousands of acres that federal officials have declared key to California red-legged frogs and Alameda whipsnakes.

Instead, the agencies would identify habitat to be protected within recovery plans that critics say are not binding.

More significant, the federal government would be required for the first time to pay owners for losses associated with protecting endangered species. Developers, for example, would be compensated for the value of structures they could not build because of restrictions that were ordered to protect wildlife.

"If (the recovery of endangered species) is such an important social value to the public, then the public should be willing to open up its wallet and pay for it," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

No price tag has been affixed to the bill, but critics say the high cost of that provision to the treasury would undermine endangered species protection.

Other proposed changes include more stringent scientific review standards and a 180-day deadline for federal agencies to determine whether landowners' development proposals would hurt endangered species.

Unlike Pombo's previous efforts to rewrite the endangered species law, he secured a number of votes from across the political aisle in this round, primarily in western and southern states where much of the tension has erupted.

Environmentalists, who appear to be universally critical of Pombo's approach, are pinning their hopes in the Senate.

"It looks to me the Senate is going in a different direction. That doesn't bode well for Pombo's bill," said Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz., that files frequent lawsuits on behalf of endangered species.

And a key senator this week said he has reservations about the Pombo bill, meaning that even if Pombo's bill is on a fast track in the House it could face a potentially crippling pit stop in the Senate.

"There are some things (of concern) in the Pombo bill," said Stephen Hourahan, a spokesman for Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. "Actually removing critical habitat -- that is something the senator has a great deal of difficulty with."

Chafee chairs the Senate's subcommittee on fisheries, wildlife and water and is the gatekeeper for any endangered species legislation in the Senate.

Hourahan said that even though Chafee is considering amendments to the endangered species law and has already held a few hearings on the subject, he has no timeline.

"The House is in the business of moving very quickly," he said. "This is a more deliberative body."

But Pombo predicted the Senate will adopt similar legislation.

"I think, in the end, we'll get a bill," Pombo said. "Even the Democrats who voted against me agree with just about everything in it. The only thing they don't like is the property rights stuff."

ENDANGERED SPECIES OF LOCAL INTEREST:

--Alameda whipsnake

Listed as a threatened species in 1997, it is a fast-moving snake that lives in East Bay chaparral and can grow to 5 feet long. Its presence has delayed housing projects, including one near Hayward.

Although 400,000 acres were designated in 2000 as critical habitat for the whipsnake, that designation has been set aside as a result of a lawsuit by developers who argued that the economic impact of that designation was not taken sufficiently into account.

--California red-legged frog

Listed as a threatened species in 1996, this frog was once abundant throughout California and is reputed to be the species of frog that Mark Twain wrote about in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." It is the largest native frog in the western United States, growing up to 5 inches in length.

Four percent of California was designated as critical habitat for the frog, but that designation is in limbo due to court action by developers. Based on limited information, government biologists believe the frog's population continues to decline and that in many areas the decline is rapid.

--Delta smelt

Listed as a threatened species in 1993, these fish are considered an indicator of the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Though they were once one of the most common fish in the open water of the Delta, their numbers began declining in the early 1980s, largely due to upstream water operations that reduced the amount of fresh water flowing into the Delta.

In the last three years, the numbers of smelt have declined steeply for unknown reasons.

--California condor

Listed as an endangered species in 1967, the California condor is one of the rarest and largest of flying birds. Only 21 existed in 1982, and during the 1980s biologists began breeding them in captivity.

In 1992, biologists began reintroducing them to the wild, and those reintroductions continue. Last week, biologists released three at Pinnacles National Monument, east of the Salinas Valley. There are now 276 condors, including 125 in the wild.

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen and Mike Taugher

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Copyright (c) 2005, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

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Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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