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Wildlife advocates look to Senate to stop Endangered Specieis Act changes

WASHINGTON — Environmentalist Colin Rowan of Austin, Texas, says he believes that after more than 30 years the Endangered Species Act needs to be reformed.

"But slitting it down the belly and gutting it is not the way to do it," says Rowan, national director of communications for Environmental Defense, "and that's what the Pombo bill does."

The "Pombo bill" is a sweeping rewrite of the law written in 1973 to protect threatened and endangered species.

And "gutting" is not what Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., says his Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 does to the act, regarded by naturalists as one of the keystone environmental laws.

Pombo and others who support his bill say it would modernize a law that has made meager contributions to the recovery of plants and animals that are in danger of extinction or, less seriously, threatened with becoming extinct.

If the bill, which the House passed 229-193 last week, were to pass the Senate and become law, it would bring sweeping changes to system governing the survival prospects of endangered and threatened creatures like the Florida panther, the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the gopher tortoise, the eastern indigo snake and scores of others.

"The ESA must be updated to incorporate 30 years of lessons learned," Pombo said when his House Resources Committee held hearings on the bill. "It must be modernized for the 21st century to provide flexibility for innovation to achieve results."

Pombo said the act has been a failure because only a handful of species, such as the Peregrine falcon, the brown pelican and the American alligator, have ever been declared fully "recovered."

Others, like the bald eagle, remain on the Fish and Wildlife Service's list of plants and animals whose habitats cannot be altered in ways that wildlife biologists believe will threaten their continued existence.

Among other changes, Pombo's bill would repeal a section many environmentalists see as the heart of the law. That section requires the Secretary of Interior to designate for land occupied by threatened or endangered species as "critical habitat," automatically imposing restrictions on how the land can be used.

This would be replaced by recovery plans environmentalists say are vaguely defined.

The bill also would give the Fish and Wildlife Service 180 days to respond to a landowner's request to develop property on which a listed species lives. Without a response in that time, the request would be deemed approved.

If it is denied, the landowner would be entitled to compensation from the government at fair market value.

The bill is avidly supported by farm groups, timber interests and other organizations that have long claimed that the Endangered Species Act unfairly forces private landowners to shoulder most of the cost of protecting listed species.

Organizations that support it include: the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Forest and Paper Association, the Edison Electric Institute and the National Association of Home Builders.

"There's no question that we need more incentives for landowners," said Environmental Defense's Rowan. "They need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

But he and others say Pombo's bill goes too far, strips the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service of its authority to protect endangered and threatened plants and animals and creates a "new class of entitlements" by paying landowners.

Environmental organizations have turned their attention to the Senate, where they believe Rep. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., will block the House bill.

Chafee is chairman of Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on fisheries, wildlife and water.

The full committee has 10 Republicans, seven Democrats and Independent James Jeffords of Vermont. In the past, Chafee has sometimes joined Jeffords and the Democrats to effect a 9-9 vote, blocking bills opposed by environmentalists.

The most notable example was his vote against President Bush's "Clear Skies" amendment to the Clean Air Act.

Wildlife groups believe Chafee will either block Pombo's bill in his committee or vote with the minority to keep it from receiving full committee approval.

"We are urging the Senate to take a careful look at this issue and not take up the Pombo bill at all," said Bob Irwin, vice president of Defenders of Wildlife.

Defenders of Wildlife has posted an appeal for donations on its Web site, saying that if the House-passed measure were to become law, "it would all but eliminate the federal commitment to protecting wolves, sea otters, bald eagles and other animals from extinction."

On the Web:

Defenders of Wildlife: www.defenders.org.

The National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition: www.nesarc.org

Jeff Nesmith's e-mail address is jeffn(at)coxnews.com