For Immediate Release
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Contact Brian Kennedy at (202) 226-9019

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:
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/issues.../whitepaper.htm

Walden bill to revise Species Act advances
Congressman unsure of success this year but will 'keep trying'

From Bend.com news sources
Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 3:08 PM
Reference Code: AR-16887

July 21 - WASHINGTON – The House Resources Committee on Wednesday approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., that supporters say would modernize the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act, requiring peer review of government science used in the decision-making process.

The bill, HR 1662 passed the committee on a bipartisan vote of 26-15, including the support of four Democrats, Walden said.

Walden, chairman of the panel’s Forests & Forest Health subcommittee, was encouraged by the committee’s action on the bill, noting that it has bipartisan support from 66 cosponsors.

“As the committee learned last weekend in Klamath Falls at our congressional field hearing, by modernizing the 30-year-old ESA to include field testing and expert peer review of government science, we can avert decisions based on inconclusive science that can hurt species and devastate small communities and the economies they rely on,” Walden said. “It is the responsibility of the Congress to deliver this tool to America’s wildlife and citizens.”.

“Peer review is a practice required by the Food & Drug Administration, medical and scientific journals, the Department of Health & Human Services and the Department of Education,” the 2nd District congressman said. “Why wouldn’t we use this proven scientific principle when it comes to the survival of a species, or the survival of a community?”

Wednesday’s committee vote officially renamed this legislation. It was formerly titled the Sound Science for Endangered Species Act Planning Act of 2003.

The legislation directs the Secretary of the Interior to take into account peer review and field study on commercial or scientific evidence from the National Academy of Sciences, or appointed individuals, before making a determination that a species is endangered. The Secretary would still have authorization to make emergency declarations if a critical situation arises.

Democratic Representatives Joe Baca (D-CA), Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), Brad Carson (D-OK) and Cal Dooley (D-CA) joined in support of Walden’s bill.

“I know that the application of the ESA in my area has educated me to the point that I see how we don’t use sound science on a regular basis,” said Cardoza. He cited an example in which the actual field assessment of the future site for a university came up with very different results than the data presented to them when they first looked at the site. “I am in whole-hearted support (of the bill),” he said.

"The Walden legislation would strengthen the scientific foundation of species recovery efforts by integrating a peer-review tool into ESA decision-making processes,” said Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA). “As Greg
It’ll be an uphill push. My view is, you don’t stop trying.
Rep. Greg Walden
R-Ore., on passage of bill to revise Endangered Species Act

has so ably pointed out, scores of other federal laws require this standard scientific safeguard, but it has never been integrated into Washington's solution for recovering endangered species. I applaud his efforts. The communities throughout the United States who have suffered at the hand of poor decision-making under the ESA should applaud him too."

During a telephone conference call Wednesday to a panel of state lawmakers meeting in Bend, Walden said the changes he’s proposed to the act would have made sure an NAS study was completed before water was cut off to Klamath Basin farmers. The proposed changes would require use of survey data from the field, rather than computer modeling, in making decisions related to the Endangered Species Act.

It’s not yet known when Walden’s bill will be scheduled for debate on the House floor, the congressman told the Oregon House Interim Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. “It won’t be until September,” he said, after the late-summer recess for the political conventions. Any later, he said, and it will run into the fall’s “hard-core presidential politics.”

While expressing hope of success, Walden acknowledged, “It’ll be an uphill push. My view is, you don’t stop trying. You just keep working at it.” He noted the years of work it took to get the Healthy Forests Restoration Act through Congress and to the president’s desk.

The House committee also approved HR 2933, the Critical Habitat Reform Act, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA).

That legislation would adjust what supporters call the arbitrary and now-untenable deadline under which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to designate critical habitat, giving the agency more time to collect useable data.

Cardoza said that 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 what he termed 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," Cardoza said. "Today's passage brings us one step closer to making critical habitat designations work."

http://www.bend.com/news/ar_view%5E3Far_id...887.htm#no-hash

WOW !, with all the hooplaa about the ASA - CBD meeting going on this info seems pertinent to the question of the day " why is the CBD trying to make deals ? ". Well maybe DP knew what was coming. jmo.

YOU DA MAN CROWDOG ! Thanks for the info !

GOD BLESS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!

House Advances Two Bills Changing Endangered Species Act
(CNSNews.com) - A House committee has passed two bills that would modernize the oft-criticized Endangered Species Act.


H.R. 2933, the Critical Habitat Reform Act, "corrects the dysfunctional critical habitat designation process," the House Resources Committee said. It would give the federal Fish and Wildlife Service more time to collect data -- and reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits filed by environmental activists.


H.R. 1662, the Sound Science for ESA Planning Act, would add a "peer review" requirement to decisions about which species need protection. Peer review is intended to weed out inaccurate data. The committee calls it a "scientific safeguard."


The ESA really needs fixing, the House Committee on Resources said. Signed into law 30 years ago by President Nixon, the ESA was intended to protect and restore species identified as threatened or endangered.


But thirty years later, the law has recovered only 12 of the 1,300 listed species -- a cumulative success rate of .01 percent (or a 99.99 percent failure rate) -- the committee noted.


Nine species have gone extinct, the committee said.


"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," Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) said in a press release.


"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."


Pombo rejected criticism that the bills will weaken or "gut" the ESA: "How could we possibly make this law any weaker than its unintended consequences have?" he asked.


"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," he said.


"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," said Rep. Greg Walden.


A coalition of 17 environmental activist groups -- including the National Wildlife Federation, the National Resources Defense Council, the Union o f Concerned Scientists, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the World Wildlife Fund -- is fighting the reform effort.


In a letter to committee members, the Endangered Species Coalition said the two bills would "severely weaken key provisions" of the ESA and "undermine some of its most fundamental principles."

http://www.townhall.com/news/politics/2004...20040722a.shtml

The Associated Press
Updated: 7:28 p.m. ET July 21, 2004

WASHINGTON -

Practicality rule for endangered species?

House committee passes idea for listing approval The House Resources Committee voted Wednesday to make practicality a standard in designating areas off-limits to most development under the Endangered Species Act.

Supporters said the proposed changes would improve how endangered species and their critical habitats are designated. Environmentalists and some Democrats protested they would render key portions of the landmark law virtually meaningless.

“These aren’t minor tweaks we’re talking about,” said Marty Hayden, legislative director of Earthjustice. “These two bills are trying to cut holes in that safety net large enough that an elephant could fall through.”

One bill, by Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., would change how critical habitats necessary for the survival of a species are designated. Before such a designation could be made, officials would have to determine that it is “practicable.” Much development is prohibited on areas designated as critical habitat.

New review board?
The other bill, by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., would establish a peer review board, chosen by the interior secretary, to vet the collected scientific information on a species before it could be listed as endangered. The board would be composed of members recommended by governors and the National Academy of Sciences.

The bills were shepherded by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., a rancher and property rights advocate who has long sought to revise the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act.

Pombo has argued that the law now creates unreasonable regulatory hurdles for property owners while failing to help many species.

“There is no attempt on the part of Mr. Cardoza or this committee to gut, eviscerate or roll back the Endangered Species Act,” Pombo said. “It’s time we put aside the rhetoric that’s been going on for the past 15 years ... and try to work together to deal with some of the shortcomings that we have in the Endangered Species Act.”

Supporters said the changes would make listing species and designating habitat more logical, scientific and responsive to local residents. Opponents said they would erect roadblocks to listing new endangered species and make it easy for the government to avoid designating habitat critical to a species’ survival.

Senate not likely to adopt
“What is ’practicable’ to me might not be ’practicable’ to the secretary of the interior on a bad hair day,” said Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, the committee’s senior Democrat.

Rahall offered a substitute measure that didn’t include the word “practicable,” but it was rejected.

Pombo acknowledged that getting either of the proposed changes through the Senate is “a long shot.”

More than 1,800 plants and animals are now listed as threatened or endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service says 39 have been taken off the list over the years — 15 because they recovered and the others because they went extinct or for technical reasons.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5481386/