Guest Commentary by Marilyn Musgrave
October 1, 2006


The decision to add a plant or animal to the list of species regulated under the Endangered Species Act can have harsh consequences for those who live with it. Given the potential for adverse outcomes, such decisions should be based on timely and accurate data. Unfortunately, a recent report requested by Congress from the Government Accountability Office documented a very different process for some species.

The report looked at approximately 30 of the 1,300 domestic species on the endangered list. Twenty percent of these species were scored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as making substantial progress toward recovery. However, their progress was not so much attributable to conservation as it was to data error, which is bureaucratic code for things such as undercounting.

For example, the "endangered" status of the Truckee barberry, a California plant, was based on three samples: a couple from unknown locations in the 1880s and another collected by a high school student in the 1970s -- a weak basis on which to determine a species' status. As it turned out, the Truckee barberry is not endangered. In fact, it's not even a distinct species. It's the same as another plant that is widespread from western Canada south and east to the Great Plains.

As we heard during a recent congressional hearing in Greeley, similar problems exist with the Preble's meadow jumping mouse, and it is having a significant impact on the livelihoods of Westerners.

The mouse was listed under the ESA as a subspecies in 1998. Colorado landowners and the state of Wyoming have challenged the validity of the listing, petitioning the Wildlife Service to remove the mouse from the endangered species list. They assert it is much more abundant and widespread than previously known -- by almost four fold. The petitioners also assert that the mouse is not a legitimate subspecies, but instead part of a larger group of jumping mice that are not threatened.

In his hearing testimony last week, the Wyoming attorney general likened the Preble's mouse to the jackalope, a mythical creature that is half jackrabbit and half antelope.

Still, property owners who find the mouse on their land must endure federally imposed burdens in the name of saving this "threatened" mouse. One witness at the hearing testified that nearly half of 450 acres of private property slated for new homes had to be set aside for mouse preserves.

Under current law, one of the centerpieces of the ESA is the designation of critical habitat for listed species. While such a designation might sound positive, it's been criticized by successive Democrat and Republican administrations as both ineffective and a waste of money. Despite this, more than 31,000 acres have been designated as critical mouse habitat. The Wildlife Service has estimated the resulting economic impact to range from $79 million to $183 million over 10 years.

A bipartisan House-passed bill to improve the ESA, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act, gets rid of the wasteful and arcane critical habitat process and requires improved reporting, improved data standards and more local involvement. Such standards would reduce costly mistakes, saving money and resources for species that are truly endangered.

Further, TESRA is designed to combat the unfortunate "shoot, shovel and shut up" mentality by providing landowners conservation incentives. Under TESRA, if ESA regulations cause a taking of private property, landowners are justly compensated. While TESRA would clearly improve our endangered species program, making law requires action by both chambers of congress. The House measure waits a Senate response. Meanwhile, environmental groups continue to raise vast amounts of money collecting attorney fees from critical habitat lawsuits and frantic fundraising letters about attempts to "gut" the ESA.

Claims that such actions are gutting the law are outrageous and as phony as the Truckee barberry and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse's "threatened" status. They have nothing to do with conservation.

U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican, represents Colorado's 4th Congressional District. Her e-mail address is www.house.gov/musgrave. The article was co-written by House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican from California.

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