|
For
Immediate Release
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Brian Kennedy
Committee
Votes to Modernize Endangered Species Act
Washington,
DC - Today the House
Committee on Resources passed two bills
integral to the effort of modernizing the
Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Specifically, the committee approved H.R.
2933, the Critical Habitat Reform Act,
sponsored by Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
and H.R. 1662, the Sound Science for ESA
Planning Act, sponsored by Rep. Greg
Walden (R-OR).
Signed into
law 30 years ago by President Nixon, the
ESA was intended to conserve and
recover
species
identified as threatened or endangered to
healthy populations. The mechanics of the
ESA have not been updated since. After
thirty years, the law has recovered
12 of 1300
listed species, for a
cumulative success rate of .01% (or a
99.99% rate of failure), even under the
Fish and Wildlife Service's own,
optimistic reading. Nine species have gone
extinct. More than a dozen were listed due
to data errors and subsequently removed.
"Despite
this law's noble intent, the ESA has
recovered less than one percent of the
species on its list in the last thirty
years," Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA)
said. "Unintended consequences have
rendered it a failed managed-care program
that checks species in, but never checks
them out. These bills will modernize the
law to improve our results for recovery,
and in that regard, there is certainly
nowhere to go but up."
"Some have
asserted that these bills would somehow
gut or weaken the Endangered Species Act,"
Pombo continued. "To them I ask, how could
we possibly make this law any weaker than
its unintended consequences have - and its
results show - over the last thirty years?
A few environmental groups may have a
financial stake in the status quo, but
clearly, species recovery is what is at
stake if we do not modernize this law for
the 21st century. We must put the rhetoric
aside, come together, and address these
problems. The bipartisan support for these
bills today is an indication that we are
beginning to do just that."
The Cardoza
legislation adjusts the arbitrary and
now-untenable deadline under which the FWS
is required to designate critical habitat,
giving the agency more time to collect
useable data. This will also reduce the
overwhelming volume of the
frivolous litigation filed under the
ESA, litigation that forces our biologists
out of the field and into the courthouse.
It corrects the dysfunctional critical
habitat designation process, linking it to
the species recovery planning process, and
integrating the data accumulated in that
process. The result will be a greater
focus on species recovery under the Act
and improvement of the abysmal .01%
success rate.
"We are
reforming a flawed process responsibly
with bipartisan support," Rep. Cardoza
said. "Today's passage brings us one step
closer to making critical habitat
designations work."
The Walden
legislation would strengthen the
scientific foundation of species recovery
efforts by integrating a peer-review tool
into ESA decision-making processes. Unlike
laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act,
the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and a
host of laws that affect the Food and Drug
Administration, the Department of
Education, and the Department of Labor,
and the Department of Commerce (to name a
few), the ESA currently has NO peer review
requirement. The absence of peer review
explains the overwhelming record of
inaccurate data - and
data errors - under the ESA. Peer
review is a standard scientific safeguard,
but has somehow never been integrated into
Washington's solution for recovering
endangered species.
"I am proud
that H.R. 1662 is moving forward and
appreciate the support shown by my
colleagues," said Rep. Greg Walden. "By
modernizing the 30-year-old ESA to include
field-testing and peer review, we can
ensure that sweeping policy decisions are
based on sound science, representing the
best interests of species, people and
communities. Peer review is a practice
used by the FDA, medical and scientific
journals, Health & Human Services and the
Department of Education. It just makes
sense that we employ the same practice
when talking about decisions that could
drastically impact entire species."
Rep. George
Radanovich (R-CA):
"The ESA is
not sacrosanct. It is a law that has been
around for 30 years and has yet to make
significant gains toward recovering
species. The bills being marked up in
Committee today make commonsense changes
to the Act by requiring science-based,
peer-reviewed listing decisions and
establishing a clearer mechanism for
designating critical habitat. This is how
we can begin recovering species, which is
the primary purpose of the Act.
My own San
Joaquin Valley district is being
confronted with ESA decisions that include
fairy shrimp and the Central California
tiger salamander, among others, and the
local and economic impacts are widespread.
Farmers, landowners, small businesses and
others cannot continue to endure the
uncertainty this Act has caused. That's
why these reasonable, balanced bills are
so important."
Rep. Jim
Gibbons (R-NV):
"The
Endangered Species Act was passed as a
means to conserve and recover endangered
species. Unfortunately, it has not
achieved that goal. According to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, only 12 of the
law's roughly 1300 protected species have
recovered. That equates to a failure rate
of over 99 percent. Now, I realize there
are special interest groups who want to
blindly protect any government program no
matter the success-fail rate, but I
challenge anybody to state in all
seriousness that the Endangered Species
Act has achieved its goal. Commonsense
reform to the ESA is necessary to better
protect and recover our species, and the
reforms discussed today are long-overdue."
Rep. Barbara
Cubin (R-WY):
"Too many
citizens are shut out of their public and
private lands because of the unfair
application of the ESA. From the Klamath
Falls debacle and the Lynx hoax to the
Preble's jumping mouse, the shoddy science
collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service may cause many folks to lose some
of the use of their lands. It's not
unreasonable to expect that the law
require a sound scientific basis before
restrictions can be placed on thousands of
acres of public or private land."
Rep. Dennis
Rehberg (R-MT):
"These are
common-sense reforms, designed to hold
this runaway law accountable to sound
science and peer review," said Montana's
Congressman, Denny Rehberg, a rancher. "I
don't think it's too much to ask that the
Environmental Species Act be changed to
impose scientific accountability on
federal bureaucrats empowered with
spending millions of tax dollars to list
and control the habitat of whatever
species they determine to be threatened."
Rep. Chris
Cannon (R-UT):
"All too
often the implementation of the ESA has
been based on questionable scientific data
that have received no independent peer
review, causing state and local
governments as well as private landowners
to bear the burden of unwarranted critical
habitat designations. Despite hundreds of
lawsuits and other tactics used by extreme
environmentalists, we have seen little
success in actually recovering species
from the Endangered Species List. Clearly,
many changes to the ESA and the process
for designating critical habitat are
needed. It is time to bring science and
common sense to the ESA. By allowing local
governments and landowners into the
designation process, we will reduce the
amount of litigation clogging our
courtrooms and protect needed areas."
Rep Rick
Renzi (R-AZ):
"For more
than thirty years, our ranchers, farmers,
miners and lumberjacks in rural Arizona
have suffered at the expense of an often
abused federal endangered species
protection law. As a result, hundreds of
thousands of jobs have been lost, families
forced to move, and once thriving rural
communities are now threatened. These
vital pieces of legislation will restore a
balance to our species protection laws, by
preserving our rich rural traditions and
local economies and allowing both nature
and man to coexist in harmony."
From Rep.
Tom Tancredo (R-CO):
"The serious
questions raised about the accuracy of
listing and habitat decisions on the
Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse make it
clear why these two bipartisan measures
are needed. Both go a long way toward
modernizing the ESA by introducing better
science and common sense to the species
conservation process."
Rep. Rob
Bishop (R-UT):
"The
Endangered Species Act was intended to
recover species but it doesn't, period. It
is broken and needs to be fixed.
Endangered species will continue to be
endangered if we won't admit this and do
something about it. If we have in mind the
best interests of the environment and the
species the original Act was supposed to
protect, this ESA reform legislation will
move through the process and become part
of the law."
###
For more
information on Modernizing the ESA, read
Chairman Richard Pombo's White Paper:
The ESA at 30: A Mandate for Modernization
|
