Utahns push Species Act reform

WASHINGTON — Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop, R-Utah, helped push through the House Resources Committee two bills to rewrite the Endangered Species Act, which they say has done little to help wildlife but has hurt development in the West.

"The Endangered Species Act was intended to recover species, but it doesn't — period. It is broken and needs to be fixed," Bishop said after the committee action on Wednesday.

One bill it passed, by Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., would make it more difficult to designate critical habitat for endangered and threatened species. It would allow the Interior secretary to designate such habitat if it is "practicable," a term change he said is essential to protect military base operations and economic development.

However, Rep. Nick J. Rahall, ranking Democrat on the committee, quipped, "What is practicable to me might not be practicable to the secretary of the Interior on a bad hair day. . . . Without habitat, we know that species cannot recover, let alone survive."

But that bill passed 26-14, with six Democrats joining all Republicans to support it.

Another bill by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., called for peer review for decisions made under the law, such as adding new species or designating critical habitat.

He said such review might have prevented errors that led federal authorities to cut off water in 2001 to farmers in the Klamath River basin to help threatened fish. The National Academy of Science later said that data was insufficient to support that.

That bill passed 26-15 with four Democrats in favor and one Republican against.

Cannon and Bishop — who are committee members who voted with the majority — hailed their passage. They said change is needed because only 12 of the 1,300 species listed through the years have recovered.

"All too often the implementation of the ESA has been based on questionable scientific data that have received no independent peer review," leading to curtailing development that has been hard on ranchers, miners and others, Cannon said.

"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," he added.

Bishop said, "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."

Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., added, "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."

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