By AMY LINDBLOM

When Congress reconvenes this fall, four California congressmen will set their sights on weakening the 31-year-old Endangered Species Act.

One bill that has already been sponsored would make it harder to list species as endangered. And one long-time congressional critic of the act says he too plans to push legislation to weaken the act.

Critics contend the law has not succeeded in doing what it is supposed to — save animals and plants at risk of extinction.

But environmentalists say the congressmen's efforts are driven by politics and business interests.

Nationwide, 1,291 species are now protected by the law, and an additional 257 candidate species are being considered for protection.

California alone has 291 species listed as threatened or endangered, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In Calaveras and Tuolumne counties, the ESA protects species including the Chinese Camp brodiaea, the vernal pool tadpole shrimp, the Lahontan cutthroat trout and the mountain yellow-legged frog.

The stage for the battle over the act was set in May in an 84-page report presented by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy. The report said that since the ESA was signed into law on Dec. 28, 1973, only 10 out of 1,304 species have been recovered or "delisted" from the endangered list.

"The fact is that the few recovery success stories are not even attributable to regulatory protections under the ESA, but to unrelated factors such as the ban on DDT," wrote Pombo, a long-time critic of the law.

Environmentalists say that, if anything, politicians should change the law to make it easier to protect species.

"It seems lately that the focus has been on how to weaken the act, which passed in 1973 with bipartisan support," said John Buckley, director of the Twain-Harte based Central Sierra Environmental Research Center.

Buckley said the Endangered Species Act has done a real service by helping bald eagles, grizzly bears and gray wolves, what he called "charismatic animals," from extinction. Still, some people become more apathetic when it comes to saving the red-legged frog, the pacific fisher, a snail darter or Layne's ragwort.

"Humans should not make god-like decisions on what species are worth keeping or letting disappear," Buckley said. "It is up to Congress to protect all species for future generations."

Robert Stack, executive director of the Angels Camp-based Jumping Frog Institute, said the congressmen's efforts ares misguided.

"Pombo has made it his mission all along to get rid of the Endangered Species Act," said Stack, whose organization seeks to restore habitat for the red-legged frog.

"He's a fraud and a liar and the worst kind of congressional representative."

Congressmen Pombo, George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, John Doolittle, R-Roseville, and Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, say the Endangered Species Act has done little to actually protect species, but a lot toward tying up private development, and keeping lawyers busy.

Overhauling the Endangered Species Act is needed because the law has allowed environmental organizations to use the act to rally support for their causes, block development and prohibit legal land uses, said Pombo, chairman of the House Committee on Resources.

The Tracy congressman contends it is environmentalists who have helped undermine the law.

Private landowners would chosen to surreptitiously destroy habitat rather than deal with litigation and regulations that try to save a species, says his report, citing what he calls the "shoot, shovel and shut-up syndrome."

Stack counters that Pombo is creating that atmosphere, not environmentalists.

Stack is currently working with a Calaveras County rancher who has created two ponds on his property to restore a red-legged frog habitat while creating a watering hole for his cattle.

Cardoza has sponsored a bill this year to change the ESA, with Doolittle and Radanovich listed as co-sponsors.

HR1299 will not allow a species to be protected until it is declared threatened or endangered.

Cardoza's bill also would specify, among other things, that the economic impact of declaring land as critical habitat for a threatened or endangered species be weighed.

Pombo plans to write his own bill to change the ESA for the 109th Congress when it resumes this fall.

"No one disagrees with the need for protecting our nation's truly endangered and threatened species," Radanovich, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Water and Power, said this week during a hearing on the ESA's effect on water supplies. "However, under the rigid law in place, we now have an act that puts species before people."

Radanovich cited delays in the construction of a University of California, Merced, campus due to an encroachment onto the habitat of the vernal pool tadpole shrimp.

"Thousands of thousands of acres were set aside for mitigation on behalf of the fairy shrimp so this species would be untouched.

The university was hampered in its efforts to construct the needed educational facility, " Radanovich said. "No community should experience these obstacles."

Contact Amy Lindblom at alindblom@uniondemocrat.com or 588-4527.