WASHINGTON – Even as the controversies over protecting the spotted owl and Pacific salmon continue to roil the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. House approved on Thursday the most sweeping changes in the Endangered Species Act since its inception 32 years ago.

The bill, approved 229-193, faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where moderate Republicans have shown little support. The White House backed the House measure, though it had concerns about the overall price tag, warning it could have a “significant” impact on the budget deficit.

The House bill would eliminate requirements that habitat considered critical to the survival of animals or plants facing extinction be set aside.

The measure also would ensure that private property owners receive fair-market compensation if their land use was restricted by an effort to revive a threatened or endangered species.

In addition, the legislation would tighten timelines for federal agencies to make decisions involving protected species and give federal officials more latitude in determining the “best available science” when developing recovery plans.

Democrats in the Washington state delegation, along with freshman Republican Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Bellevue), opposed the bill. Other Republicans from the state supported the measure.

Reichert was concerned about the elimination of critical habitat requirements, said Heather Janick, a spokeswoman for the congressman.

“He feels it is more important to vote his conscience and the district rather than Republican leadership,” she said.

Other foes said that while the act might need updating, the House measure was not the answer.

“This is a step backward,” Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair) said during the floor debate. “It will not help species, it will hurt them.”

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Pasco) disagreed.

“This act is broken and needs updating,” Hastings said.

The act, signed into law by President Nixon in 1973, is the nation’s primary law for protecting plants and wildlife. But the law also has been a flashpoint between environmentalists and developers, private property owners and businesses.

There are 1,268 species protected under the act. Nearly 250 others have been proposed for listing. Over the years, about a dozen species have been removed from the list. Nine species have gone extinct.

In Washington, 31 animals and nine plant species are protected, ranging from grizzly bears to the Oregon silverspot butterfly, and from the golden paintbrush to Kincaid’s lupine.

But most of the attention has focused on the northern spotted owl, which inhabits old-growth coastal and Cascade forests, and Pacific salmon and steelhead, which spawn along Puget Sound and in the Columbia River Basin.

“No part of the country has been more affected by the Endangered Species Act than Washington state,” said Dicks.

Fifteen years after the spotted owl was listed as a protected species, the dispute over logging in the region’s public forests remains unresolved. The Clinton administration, in its Northwest Forest Plan, placed 7.4 million acres of federal forests off limits to logging. Since then, the Bush administration has loosened those restrictions. It is developing its own recovery plan for the reclusive owl.

More than 250 mills have closed and 27,000 loggers and millworkers have lost their jobs because of the limits, according to timber industry estimates.

Thirteen salmon and steelhead runs in Washington are listed as threatened or endangered.

In the Columbia Basin, federal agencies are spending more than $600 million annually to restore the protected runs, and the fight over breaching four dams on the lower Snake River still rages. In Puget Sound, a new salmon plan would cost $1.5 billion over 10 years.

This summer, the administration proposed reducing the 121,000 miles of streams and rivers considered critical habitat for the salmon by about 80 percent.

With some House members quoting the Bible and others scientific studies, debate centered on the provisions in the bill that would require compensation to private landowners affected by a listing, and the change in critical habit designations.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the compensation initially would cost $10 million annually and then increase to about $20 million annually.

Dicks dismissed the estimates as “laughable” as he and other opponents argued that the compensation figures would result in a massive new federal “entitlement” program. It would be subject to abuse by developers who would merely have to propose a project on land where endangered species were found to get a government check, they said.

“Why should federal taxpayers have to pay for this flim-flam development?” said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island).

Backers of the bill denied its compensation provision would result in a major federal spending program.

“No one is screaming it’s an entitlement if we take property away for a highway project,” said Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), the principal author of the bill, adding that 90 percent of the habitat for endangered species was on private land.

State species on the list

Here are the 40 animals and plants in Washington state that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Animals

Endangered

 • Short-tailed albatross

 • Woodland caribou

 • Columbian white-tailed deer, Columbia River

 • Brown pelican

 • Pygmy rabbit, Columbia Basin

 • Chinook salmon, spring, upper Columbia River

 • Sockeye salmon

 • Leatherback sea turtle

 • Steelhead, upper Columbia River Basin

 • Humpback whale

 • Gray wolf

Threatened

 • Grizzly bear

 • Oregon silverspot butterfly

 • Bald eagle

 • Canada lynx

 • Marbled murrelet, California, Oregon, Washington

 • Northern spotted owl

 • Western snowy plover, Pacific coastal population

 • Chinook salmon, Puget Sound

 • Chinook salmon, fall, Snake River

 • Chinook salmon, lower Columbia River

 • Chinook salmon, spring/summer, Snake River

 • Chum salmon, Columbia River

 • Chum salmon, summer, Hood Canal

 • Sockeye salmon, Ozette Lake, Clallam County

 • Green sea turtle

 • Steller sea lion

 • Steelhead, Snake River Basin

 • Steelhead, upper Willamette River

 • Steelhead, lower Columbia River

 • Bull trout

Plants

Endangered

 • Showy stickseed

 • Bradshaw’s desert parsley

 • Wenatchee Mountains checkermallow

Threatened

 • Golden paintbrush

 • Water howellia

 • Kincaid’s lupine

 • Nelson’s checkermallow

 • Spalding’s catchfly

 • Ute ladies’ tresses

Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008

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