Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators trying to craft an Endangered Species Act rewrite bill has failed to reach consensus, signaling dwindling prospects of Senate action in the wake of House passage of an endangered species bill last year.
Although talks continue, the stalemate is welcome news for environmentalists. They viewed the House-passed bill as dangerously extreme and feared that no matter what the Senate produced, the final product could be unacceptable because of the need to combine the two efforts.
"If I cried it's probably crocodile tears," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "It's hard to see, with an extremist piece of legislation like that, how anything acceptable could result."
For property rights advocates, though, Senate inaction would be a missed opportunity. The House bill by Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would require the government to compensate property owners if steps needed to protect species thwart development plans. It also would stop the government from designating "critical habitat" where development is limited.
"I think Chairman Pombo is exactly correct when he says that protecting property rights will improve the protection of endangered wildlife habitat, so I think it's very important that we get this done," said Myron Ebell, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
But he added: "I don't know how long it's going to take."
Four key members of the Senate committee with jurisdiction, Environment and Public Works, and their aides have been working on revisions to the landmark 1973 law. They are Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., and top minority member James Jeffords, I-Vt.; and the chairman and top Democrat on the panel's wildlife subcommittee, Sens. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
Inhofe had promised a bill by the end of March but the deadline came and went, and staffers are no longer working on a timeline, aides said. Participants in the negotiations haven't been able to reach agreement on contentious issues including critical habitat and compensation for property owners.
Chafee, a moderate who is up for re-election in his heavily Democratic state, dislikes those pieces of Pombo's bill and has voiced concerns about producing a Senate bill that would be "Pombo-ized" in a House-Senate conference committee.
"They were working through negotiations to try to put a bill together, something that could be a good compromise, that could get a buy-in from everyone. Unfortunately that has been a very difficult process," Chafee's spokesman, Stephen Hourahan, said Friday.
Chafee is "very pessimistic about something happening this year," Hourahan said.
Inhofe said this week that he's considering drafting his own bill or bringing up endangered species legislation on the Senate floor as an amendment to different bill.
"The committee is continuing to work on a bipartisan bill because that remains the preference, but the senator also recognizes the time limitations in this year's legislative calendar and the need to get legislation to the president. With that in mind, of course we're considering some other options," said Inhofe spokesman Bill Holbrook.
If Inhofe wrote his own bill Chafee would likely vote against it, his spokesman said, which could prevent passage by the Environment and Public Works Committee if all Democrats voted no.
Even if the committee does come up with a bill, Congress is about to embark on a two-week recess, midterm elections loom, and immigration and other issues crowd the agenda - leaving little time for endangered species in the 109th Congress. That would mean starting the process anew in the House and Senate when the 110th Congress begins next year.