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CONTRA COSTA TIMES
House panel passes overhaul of Endangered
Species Act
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen and Mike Taugher
Sep. 23, 2005
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/
12721320.htm

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Conservative property rights
activist Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, won a key
vote Thursday in what could become the first
major overhaul of the 32-year-old federal law
that seeks to bring endangered plants and
animals back from the brink of extinction.

The House Resources Committee, of which Pombo is
the chairman, passed the Threatened and
Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 on a 26-
12 vote at the conclusion of an occasionally
contentious two-day hearing.

Eight Democrats voted aye, including bill co-
sponsor Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Stockton, and
most of the committee's Republicans.

The bill now heads for a vote on the floor of
the GOP-controlled House, where it is expected
to pass as early as next week. Its prospects in
the Senate are less certain.

Passage in the House would put Pombo closer than
ever to rewriting the Endangered Species Act, a
top goal during his 13 years in Congress.

Pombo says the existing law is ineffective
because less than 1 percent of the roughly 1,300
listed species have been recovered while
landowners pay the price for a law that he says
doesn't work.

"I told the committee members that I was willing
to do a lot to protect species as long as
property owners are protected," Pombo said
following the hearing. "And I'm not talking
about the big property owners here. It's the
little guy, the guy with 200 acres who will
never to come to Washington that I care about
protecting."

Environmentalists, however, widely panned the
legislation, saying it will turn back the clock
on plants and animals, including wolves, sea
otters, manatees and bald eagles, which they say
have survived and in some cases thrive because
Congress approved the original law in 1973.

"The Endangered Species Act is one of our most
farsighted and important conservation laws,"
Jamie Rappaport Clark, vice president of
Defenders of Wildlife and the former director of
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the
committee.

Under the proposed legislation, federal agencies
would no longer designate huge swaths of land as
critical habitat for endangered species. In the
Bay Area, that could loosen regulations on
hundreds of thousands of acres that federal
officials have declared key to California red-
legged frogs and Alameda whipsnakes.

Instead, the agencies would identify habitat to
be protected within recovery plans that critics
say are not binding.

More significant, the federal government would
be required for the first time to pay owners for
losses associated with protecting endangered
species. Developers, for example, would be
compensated for the value of structures they
could not build because of restrictions that
were ordered to protect wildlife.

"If (the recovery of endangered species) is such
an important social value to the public, then
the public should be willing to open up its
wallet and pay for it," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-
Ore.

No price tag has been affixed to the bill, but
critics say the high cost of that provision to
the treasury would undermine endangered species
protection.

Other proposed changes include more stringent
scientific review standards and a 180-day
deadline for federal agencies to determine
whether landowners' development proposals would
hurt endangered species.

Unlike Pombo's previous efforts to rewrite the
endangered species law, he secured a number of
votes from across the political aisle in this
round, primarily in western and southern states
where much of the tension has erupted.

Environmentalists, who appear to be universally
critical of Pombo's approach, are pinning their
hopes in the Senate.

"It looks to me the Senate is going in a
different direction. That doesn't bode well for
Pombo's bill," said Kieran Suckling, policy
director for the Center for Biological
Diversity, an environmental group based in
Tucson, Ariz., that files frequent lawsuits on
behalf of endangered species.

And a key senator this week said he has
reservations about the Pombo bill, meaning that
even if Pombo's bill is on a fast track in the
House it could face a potentially crippling pit
stop in the Senate.

"There are some things (of concern) in the Pombo
bill," said Stephen Hourahan, a spokesman for
Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. "Actually removing
critical habitat -- that is something the
senator has a great deal of difficulty with."

Chafee chairs the Senate's subcommittee on
fisheries, wildlife and water and is the
gatekeeper for any endangered species
legislation in the Senate.

Hourahan said that even though Chafee is
considering amendments to the endangered species
law and has already held a few hearings on the
subject, he has no timeline.

"The House is in the business of moving very
quickly," he said. "This is a more deliberative
body."

But Pombo predicted the Senate will adopt
similar legislation.

"I think, in the end, we'll get a bill," Pombo
said. "Even the Democrats who voted against me
agree with just about everything in it. The only
thing they don't like is the property rights
stuff."

Reach Lisa Vorderbrueggen at 925-945-4773 or
lvorderbrueggen@cctimes.com. Reach Mike Taugher
at 925-943-8257 or mtaugher@cctimes.com.
-----------------------------------------

The Daily News (Longview, WA)
Panel OKs major rewrite of Endangered Species Act
By Associated Press
Sep 23, 2005
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2005/09/23/nation_wor
ld/news03.txt

WASHINGTON -- A House committee on Thursday
approved a sweeping rewrite of
the Endangered Species Act that hands major new
rights to property owners while limiting the
federal government's ability to protect plant
and animal habitat.

The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman
Richard Pombo, R-Calif., bars the government
from establishing "critical habitat" for species
where development is limited, and sets deadlines
for property owners to get answers from the
government about whether their development plans
would hurt protected species.

If the government doesn't answer in time, the
development could go forward. If the government
blocks a development, the property owner would
be compensated.

The bill "will place a new emphasis on recovery
and eliminates dysfunctional critical habitat
provisions," Pombo said. "It's about a new era
in protecting species and protecting habitat at
the same time we protect property owners."

Pombo's committee approved the bill on a 26-12
vote, over objections from some Democrats and
moderate Republicans who said it would disfigure
the landmark 32-year-old law that
environmentalists credit with preserving species
like the bald eagle and California sea otter.

"It is a drastic mistake to eliminate the
provisions that have to do with the protection
of habitat for endangered species," said Rep.
Jim Saxton, R-N.J. "It is my opinion that the
Endangered Species Act is 99 percent about
protecting critical habitat."

Saxton offered an amendment to restore critical
habitat protections to the bill, but it failed
on a voice vote.

The bill now goes to the full House, where Pombo
says he has a commitment from Republican leaders
to schedule a floor vote as early as next week.
About a decade ago, Pombo failed to get the
House to approve a rewrite of the Endangered
Species Act, but he said he anticipates success
this time.

Even if it passes the House, the bill has an
uncertain future in the Senate.

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., a moderate who
chairs the wildlife subcommittee of the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, has
concerns about removing critical habitat from
the Endangered Species Act, a spokesman said.

Conservatives and property-rights supporters
like Pombo disagree bitterly with
environmentalists and many Democrats about
whether the Endangered Species Act has been a
success. Pombo often notes that only about 15 of
1,830 threatened and endangered species have
been taken off the list because they've
recovered. Supporters of the law counter that an
even tinier number -- nine-- have gone extinct.

The act is "a safety net for wildlife that's
edging toward extinction," said Michael
Hirshfield, chief scientist at Oceana, an ocean
and marine wildlife protection group.

But even some supporters agree that changes are
needed, particularly to critical habitat.
Because the law requires critical habitat to be
designated at the same time a species is listed
as endangered or threatened, Fish and Wildlife
officials say they often have too little
information to make a good decision.

As a result, critics say, critical habitat is
established without much thought, and often not
until an environmental group sues to make it
happen. A much-criticized California proposal
would set aside 4.1 million acres -- or parts of
28 of the state's 58 counties -- for the red-
legged frog.

The bill was amended to address concerns from
Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson, head
of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and others,
that the government wouldn't have enough time to
respond to landowners seeking determinations
about whether planned developments would hurt
species. Pombo's original bill set a 90-day
deadline; the amended version gives the
government up to a year.

Eight committee Democrats joined Pombo in
supporting the bill; two Republicans voted no.