AG Weekly: Updated ESA restores balance By Norm Semanko

Updated ESA restores balance

By Norm Semanko, Idaho Water Users Association executive director

The immense human tragedy unfolding along America's Gulf Coast has consumed the news media's coverage of items of national interest. So you may not know that Congress is now considering a piece of legislation with immense implications to our country.

It's called TESRA, an acronym for the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005. It is the first update and modernization in more than 30 years of the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. House of Representatives Resource Committee has been working on the legislation for two years and will be ready to bring the bill to the full House floor the week of Sept. 26.

This Congressional action is truly gratifying. Our country -- and the West in particular -- desperately needs the improvements it brings to the Endangered Species Act.

Consider this: In the past 31 years, more than 1,300 species were listed as endangered; only 10 have actually been recovered. Meanwhile, radical environmental groups have been busy manipulating the Act to put people out of work and intrude upon private property rights.

By any reasonable standard of performance, that track record is simply unacceptable. That dismal success rate should stand as a classic symbol of failure not success.

If we are serious as a nation about protecting and recovering endangered species, while at the same time protecting private property rights, then we must do better. This updated and modernized version does just that. The Resources Committee has worked on this issue for the past two years, and has identified most problems of interest to water users through field hearings.

TESRA 2005 calls for updating and modernizing the ESA so federal agencies can use the best available science in decision-making, provide incentives to encourage landowners to participate in recovery efforts and involve local, state and tribal governments in the process.

It is designed to help recover endangered species without endangering the jobs and livelihoods of American families by requiring that economic impacts and benefits be considered before final designation of critical habitat. This includes landowners' revenue as well as the impact on revenues of state and local governments. Because most of the habitat of listed species is on private land, the bill also will uphold the right of citizens to seek just compensation for the "taking" of private property.

That's critical to Idaho because we have repeatedly seen how families and communities are hurt by the ESA as it stands now. The 2001 Klamath Basin disaster was a direct result of the current ESA. Idaho's water has been under siege for more than a decade now by groups who continue to distort and misuse the Act.

Environmental activists will clamor that any changes in the status quo will "gut" the ESA. What those changes really mean is a return to some semblance of balance and reality from well-intentioned Federal law that has simply failed to do what was intended.

I urge all Idahoans to embrace this vital effort and to do everything they can to help make TESRA 2005 a reality.