Register-Guard OpEd: ESA in the crosshairs: Kempthorne plans to overhaul law

ESA in the crosshairs: Kempthorne plans to overhaul landmark law

A Register-Guard Editorial

May 13, 2006

The Dirk Kempthorne era at the Department of Interior is about to begin, and it's already looking as bleak as the Gale Norton era.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which approved his nomination Wednesday, Kempthorne said he plans to start work on an overhaul of the Endangered Species Act as soon as he's confirmed by the full Senate. "The sad truth is that the ESA too often leads to conflict when instead it should lead to cooperation, conservation and ultimately recovery of the species," the Idaho governor told senators.

Well, the sad truth is that endangered species aren't likely to benefit if Kempthorne has his way on the ESA. While he mentioned no specific reforms, Kempthorne repeatedly sought to revamp the landmark environmental law while serving in Congress a decade ago.

As a senator, Kempthorne supported giving the secretary of the interior - a political appointee, as Kempthorne's nomination reveals - the final word on whether or not to save individual species. He supported exempting species recovery plans from judicial review, and enabling agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to rely solely on their own internal assessments instead of those of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

While Kempthorne offered no specifics about his new plans to change the ESA, his record suggests that he's likely to support a bill approved earlier last year by the House. Authored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., it would give political appointees the authority to make critical scientific judgments now reserved for federal scientists. It would hamstring the current system of designating critical habitat by making it voluntary instead of mandatory. Following the dubious lead of Oregon's own Measure 37, it would also require that the government reimburse property owners who lose money by forgoing commercial use of land affected by efforts to protect species.

Three decades after it was signed into law by President Nixon, the Endangered Species Act does need updating. But the nation's cornerstone environmental law does not need, as Pombo and Kempthorne have tried to do, to be eviscerated.

ESA critics are fond of pointing out that only a handful of the 1,300 listed species have recovered to the point where they can be taken off the list. But it takes decades for most threatened and endangered species to recover to the point at which they can be delisted. The law has been a remarkable success in that only a few of listed species have so far become extinct. In fact, the government's own scientists have concluded that roughly two thirds of the species whose conditions are known are either improving or stable.

Not only does Kempthorne have the ESA in his gunsights, but last week he said he is raring to push through President Bush's expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling. This short-sighted move, which would produce relatively insignificant amounts of oil and gas after a lengthy wait, would put at severe and needless risk sensitive coastal waters from California to Alaska and from Virginia to Florida.

Barring unexpected opposition, Kempthorne seems assured of swiftly winning confirmation in the Senate. That's good news for industry, and it's bad news for the environment - and the creatures, both wildlife and human, that depend on it for survival.