Alteration of Endangered Species Act to be proposed
SACRAMENTO - A bipartisan pair of Central Valley congressmen is set to propose today changing an Endangered Species Act they contend has become unwieldy and is thwarting development without doing wildlife much good.
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, a Republican, and U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat, are allied on a bill that has environmental groups alarmed.
The congressmen are to be joined at a Sacramento news conference by Republican U.S. Reps. George Radanovich of California and Greg Walden of Oregon. They chose to announce the bill a continent away from Washington, D.C., where the measure is to be formally introduced today, to illustrate that the proposed bill would return more control to state and local governments, aides said.
Pombo has scheduled a hearing by his committee Wednesday on the bill, entitled the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005." A copy was made available Sunday to the Associated Press.
"Without meaningful improvements, the ESA will remain a failed managed care program that checks species in, but never checks them out," Pombo said in a statement Sunday.
Environmental groups, however, suspect he is trying to move the bill quickly to a House vote before opposition can build.
The environmental law firm Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity say the pending bill would eliminate major wildlife protections in the law that they contend has saved dozens of species since it was enacted in 1973.
The government would have to compensate property owners at fair market value for any loss that results from protecting endangered species, or else it could not enforce the act, under the bill.
The Center for Biological Diversity said the measure would not only be prohibitively expensive, but "would set a precedent to require the government to pay industry for any profits lost to environmental protections, and it would reward developers who plan the maximum and most potentially profitable projects for the most ecologically important habitat. In short, it begs developers to plan projects that allow them to extort payment from the government."
Craig Manson, President Bush's assistant Interior secretary for wildlife, has said that portion of the act is "broken," and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contends it eats up valuable resources without providing much benefit to wildlife.
The Center for Biological Diversity counters that species are twice as likely to recover when there has been critical habitat designated.
The environmental groups contend other provisions would impose so many regulatory restrictions or loopholes that it would shackle government biologists.