http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=38060
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ENVIRONETDAILY
Feds lowball cost of Endangered Species Act
Report says price of regulation in billions, not millions
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Posted: April 16, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
A new report by an environmental research organization finds the federal government has seriously underestimated the cost of the Endangered Species Act to American taxpayers and businesses.
Released on Wednesday, the report by the Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, criticizes the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with tracking the cost of the controversial regulation.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service report does not come close to accounting for the costs to taxpayers and to the private sector of complying with the ESA," PERC's Randy T. Simmons said in a statement. "A more accurate figure for the annual ESA costs would place those costs in billions, not millions, of dollars."
The government agency's report, "Three-Year Summary of Federal and State Endangered Species Expenditures, Fiscal Years 1998-2000," issued in late 2003, estimated that the federal government spent $610.3 million on endangered species protection for fiscal year 2000. Simmons and fellow researcher Kimberly Frost say the actual costs are probably four times that figure.
The Fish and Wildlife Service reported that from 1989 to 2000, a little over $3.5 billion of taxpayer dollars was spent on ESA-related activities. In doing their research, Simmons and Frost found that the actual cost of protecting species may easily reach or exceed that figure per year.
The PERC report found what the organization calls "limitations and inaccuracies" in the federal reporting. These include:
Not all of the federal agencies and departments reported ESA-related expenditures, even though many agencies are involved in implementing the ESA and are incurring costs. For example, the only estimates provided by the Department of Energy are from the Bonneville Power Administration.
The federal government only collects estimates of what it has spent on ESA implementation. Actual federal expenditures are far greater than these estimated costs, PERC concluded. For example, according to a U.S. House of Representative Resources Committee report, the actual costs of just five of the 21 agencies reporting exceed $1.2 billion per year.
Other costs absorbed by state and local governments and private parties are not reported at all. These costs are in the billions of dollars for the period during which property remains under regulation.
PERC also lists several costs incurred in enforcing the ESA that are not reported at all. These include, among others, ESA implementation costs that benefit multiple species, administrative costs that are incurred abroad and the cost to taxpayers of litigating ESA cases.
The research also notes the feds leave out the overall financial costs to society when people lose their jobs or have to pay higher prices for necessities thanks to the ESA. According to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, at least 130,000 jobs have been lost and more than 900 sawmills, pulp and paper mills and other forest products facilities have been closed – all due to the spotted owl since mid-1990.
In its statement, PERC mentions only a few species benefit from the government's ESA expenditures. Fifty percent of reported expenditures are for seven species, just 0.6 percent of the ESA list.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a public-interest legal organization, praised PERC's research.
"PERC's study shows that the government has no idea what the ESA is truly costing, but it does give us an idea of the enormous human costs of ESA regulation – and they're often devastating. People have lost their jobs, businesses, homes, farms, and even their lives to protect plants, insects, and fish," said Emma T. Suárez, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation.