Is
ESA broken? Reform efforts under way in
Congress
By MITCH LIES Oregon
Staff Writer
Friday,
March 11, 2005
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Fish native to Western rivers are often
the focus of controversy for lawsuits filed under the Endangered Species
Act. - MARK ROZIN/Capital Press |
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When Bureau of Reclamation officials closed the
headgates of irrigation canals in the Klamath Basin in 2001 to save endangered
fish, 1,200 Oregon farmers felt the full power of the Endangered Species Act.
And like the foresters who fought against logging restrictions imposed to
protect the endangered Northern spotted owl, the farmers suffered dramatically.
One year later, a National Academy of Science committee determined that
government scientists lacked evidence that the irrigation restrictions helped
preserve the Klamath’s endangered fish populations.
For farmers who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars the summer of 2001, that
determination was too little, too late; and it underscores what many Western
Republican congressman have been saying for the better part of the past decade:
The Endangered Species Act is broken.
Rep. Richard Pombo, R-California, chairman of the House Resources Committee,
pointed out in a paper prepared for the 109th Congress that the act has “an
abysmal ... rate of species recovery.” Pombo writes that in the 31 years of
the act, only 12 of 1,304 species listed for protection have been recovered.
Meanwhile, farmers, ranchers and foresters have lost millions in potential
revenue due to restrictions placed on the use of natural resources because of
the act. And, according to Pombo, species recovery efforts have taken a backseat
to legal defense in the wake of hundreds of lawsuits from environmental
activists.
“Under the mantra of species protection,” Pombo writes, “radical
environmental organizations use the ESA to raise funds, block development
projects and prohibit legal land uses of nearly every kind.
“By filing inordinate numbers of lawsuits under the ESA, environmental
organizations have handcuffed the Fish and Wildlife Service to courtroom defense
tables, draining the time, money and manpower Congress intended the service to
spend on species recovery in the field.”
Bill Ruckelshaus, a strategic director in the Seattle-based investment company
Madrona Venture Group and a former director of the Environmental Protection
Agency, said not only are lawsuits taking time away from wildlife service
officials, the suits are influencing recovery plans.
“There are problems in trying to solve complex issues like these in the
courts,” he said.
“Lawsuits tend to get at a piece of the problem and can stall efforts for
regionwide solutions.”
Gordon Orians, a retired University of Washington zoology professor, agreed with
Ruckelshaus noting that piecemeal approaches to species recovery tend to be
ineffective. Often, he said, what is good for one species can be bad for
another.
“The Endangered Species Act is broken. That no longer is debatable,” Rep.
C.L. “Butch” Otter, R-Idaho, wrote in a recent paper. “There are differing
views on just why it went wrong. But the fact remains that while it has been a
financial windfall for some environmental organizations and far too many
lawyers, it has utterly failed as public policy by every measure of achievement
or perception.”
John Kostyack, senior counsel for the National Wildlife Federation, said,
however, that while the act has not produced a good record of species recovery,
it has prevented hundreds of species from going extinct.
He characterized the act as a safety net for species nearing extinction.
“We have hundreds of species that would not be around today if not for the
Endangered Species Act,” he said.
Among changes to the act proposed by Otter and Pombo are efforts:
• To provide incentives for stewardship on private lands;
• To establish scientific standards that are peer-reviewed for decisions such
as listings or critical habitat designations; and
• To turn attention to recovery by encouraging innovative approaches to
increasing species populations through greater collaboration with state, local
and private recovery efforts.
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