THE OLYMPIAN
Critics of the U.S. House- approved changes in the 1973 federal Endangered Species Act are counting on the Senate to derail the bill.
Scott based his comments on a provision in the bill championed by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. It eliminates critical habitat designations for threatened and endangered species.
The bill calls for recovery plans for imperiled species and protection of areas of special value but does nothing to guarantee how much habitat would be protected, Scott said.
Most observers in Washington state and Washington, D.C., said the bill has little chance of passing the Senate and becoming law.
"This bill takes reform to an extreme," said Alex Glass, press secretary for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "The bill faces major challenges in the Senate."
"I don't even know if the Senate will take the bill up," said state Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings. "We're cautiously optimistic that the Senate will be too busy."
Koenings said a provision in the bill, which requires landowners to be compensated if the presence of a threatened or endangered species limits what they can do with their land, would create havoc for the Puget Sound chinook recovery plan, which calls for major increases in habitat protection along rivers, streams and watersheds.
"Recovering Puget Sound chinook would become tremendously more expensive," he said.
It isn't clear how the federal government could afford to compensate landowners, but the provision does have appeal for property owners who have made sacrifices to preserve land for fish and wildlife, noted Sherry Fox, a Lewis County tree farmer who, along with her husband, Tom, last week were named National Tree Farmers of the Year by the American Forest Foundation.
'No surprises' clause
She said she supported another provision in the law, which says the federal government can't come back at a later date and tell a landowner who enters into a habitat conservation plan with the feds to do more to protect species. It's the so-called "no surprises" clause.
The Fox family's 144-acre farm is covered by a habitat conservation plan that includes the no surprises clause.
"Without it, there is no incentive for the property owner to grow the habitat," she said. "And we want to grow some old timber."
On Friday, officials at the Audubon Society's state office were calling the House bill "the extinction bill."
Since the landmark bill became law, only nine of 1,268 listed species have gone extinct, said Heath Packard, field director of Audubon's state office. "ESA is our safety net, and the Pombo bill cuts holes in that safety net."
Supporters of the Pombo legislation use numbers to tell a different story. Fewer than a dozen of those same species have recovered sufficiently to take them off the ESA list, noted David Wilson, president of the National Association of Home Builders. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said 16 listed species have recovered enough to be taken off the list.
Some had the opinion Friday that Pombo's measure would have less effect on certain threatened and endangered species in this state because of existing state and local laws to protect habitat.
For instance, state and private timberland owners are required under the state Forests and Fish law to limit timber harvesting along rivers and streams to protect listed salmon species, said Cindy Mitchell, spokeswoman for the Washington Forest Protection Association.
"We're trying to make ESA work in its current form," she said. "But we're always looking for more incentives to create habitat, rather than heavy-handed regulatory approaches."
The 10-year, $1.5 billion plan to recover Puget Sound chinook that was crafted in the region and forwarded to the federal government this summer will rely in large part on habitat protection provided by city, county and state land-use ordinances, said Jim Kramer of Shared Strategies.
At the same time, the recovery plan assumes a major boost in habitat for salmon.
"It is confusing for the public," Kramer said. "We're saying we need to protect a lot more habitat than the feds call for in their critical habitat plan for Puget Sound salmon."
Billy Frank Jr.
In testimony last week before a Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Chairman Billy Frank Jr. represented the Northwest tribal perspective on the Endangered Species Act.
"The goals and objectives of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 are more essential today than they have ever been," the American Indian leader and Nisqually tribal member said. "It has helped return the mighty (bald) eagle and the gray whale from the brink of extinction. It has helped bring attention to the plight of the salmon, and it has helped bring some badly needed funding to the effort to turn the tide on salmon decline."
John Dodge covers the environment and energy for The Olympian. He can be
reached at 360-754-5444 or jdodge@olympia.gannett.com.
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