HRC: ESA Education Press Release

Washington, DC - Today has been designated "Endangered Species Day" by the United States Senate as a way to educate people about the importance of endangered species conservation and recovery. To that end, the House Resources Committee launched a website outlining the federal record on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the need to improve the law.

"While I applaud the Senate for encouraging Americans to educate themselves about this important subject, I have to remind its members that the biggest impediment to recovering endangered species is the current Endangered Species Act itself," Chairman Pombo said. "The federal record of the Act's implementation over the last three decades makes this abundantly clear. Thirty-three years of a failed approach is long enough. It's time to update and modernize the ESA for the 21st century."

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS)

U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

According to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service data:

* Less than 1% (10 of roughly 1300 species) have recovered in the Act's history.

* 39% of all listed species are classified in "unknown"status.

*21% of all listed species are classified as "declining."

*3% (or roughly 2 dozen species) are believed to be extinct.

*Only 6% of all listed species are classified as "improving."

*77% of all listed species have only achieved 0-25% of their recovery goals.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concludes that the ESA is "Not Performing":

Read about WHY it receives this grade and exactly HOW it has failed.

"The decades-long debate over welfare reform was loaded with rhetoric that clouded facts, but in the end, modernizing the welfare system helped our people and our society," Pombo continued. "The welfare law itself had created organizations and constituencies which cried that changes would hurt the most at risk. We now know those claims were wrong, and that modernizing the law empowered people to recover from their dependency on flawed government programs that checked them in and never checked them out."

"There is no difference between that debate and the current debate on ESA reform. Once again, success will depend on the courage of Washington lawmakers to rise above the rhetoric of those who defend an indefensible status quo and vote to change the system so it actually achieves results for the species it intended to recover."

"The House-passed Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act will turn three decades of conflict, litigation and failure into real cooperation for species recovery. On ESA Day, I call on the Senate to follow the bi-partisan majority in the House and pass commonsense legislation to repair this broken law."