Species Act rule eased in Valley
Ranchers get some latitude on actions that might affect the tiger salamander.
By Michael Doyle -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, August 5, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is giving Central Valley ranchers freer rein as officials seek to protect the threatened California tiger salamander.

The Valley's ranchers aren't unique. In other Western states, too, the Fish and Wildlife Service is applying what ranchers consider a reasonable compromise and environmentalists call a legal loophole.

"I think what they are attempting to do is deal with some of the conflicts in the law," Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee, said Wednesday.

"Generally, ranchers are happy that Fish and Wildlife is trying to deal with their concerns, but still, a lot of them don't think the tiger salamander should be listed at all."

Following through on intentions announced earlier, the Fish and Wildlife Service made official Wednesday its plans for protecting the black-and-yellow amphibian that has incited so much controversy.

For developers, road builders, city planners and others, the California tiger salamander's designation as threatened under the Endangered Species Act triggers new requirements. They must obtain federal permits before any activity that harms the salamander or its habitat.

The obligations imposed by the Endangered Species Act will apply across the tiger salamander's potential range, which stretches from Colusa County in the north to Kern County in the south. Soon, the Fish and Wildlife Service will follow up by proposing that 382,666 acres in 20 California counties be designated as critical habitat.

Ranchers, though, secured wide-ranging exemptions from this normal rule. The ranching exemptions granted Wednesday, moreover, go further than the Bush administration originally had proposed.

This means ranchers can fix fences, maintain stock ponds, build roads and corrals, spray for weeds and undertake other actions without worrying about whether they harm the tiger salamander.

"It's overbroad, and it's not based on sound science," said Kassie Siegel, a Southern California-based attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

"It appears to be more motivated by politics." But Siegel, whose organization sued to get the tiger salamander protected, agreed that more narrowly tailored exemptions sometimes can be appropriate. She said attorneys will be evaluating whether to challenge the new rule.

The Central Valley ranching exemptions showcase an Endangered Species Act provision that environmental lawyers know as Section 4(d).

The provision doesn't cover species designated as "endangered." But for those designated as "threatened," the provision allows the easing of normal rules.

This difference matters, for instance, to ranchers in Santa Barbara and Sonoma counties. They want the same ranching flexibility as their Central Valley counterparts. They will get it only if the Bush administration succeeds in downgrading the tiger salamander populations in Santa Barbara and Sonoma counties from endangered to threatened.

In Colorado and Wyoming, too, the Bush administration has used this section to broadly exempt ranching activities from the protections afforded the threatened Preble's meadow jumping mouse.

"We believe that relaxing the ... prohibitions ... is likely to encourage continued responsible ranching, a land use that provides an overall benefit to the California tiger salamander," Fish and Wildlife Service officials stated Wednesday in the Federal Register, where new federal rules are published.

The administration, for instance, characterized ranchers' stock ponds as "important alternative breeding sites" for the tiger salamander.

Under political fire from Westerners, the Clinton administration also had begun granting Endangered Species Act exemptions that angered environmentalists. Just before the 2000 presidential election, for instance, the Clinton administration issued rules on protecting West Coast salmon and steelhead. These included 4(d) exemptions giving state and local governments in Northern California, Oregon and Washington more authority in salmon-protection decisions. Some environmentalists contended this was tantamount to giving local business interests more clout.

Pombo said he would like to see the administration make greater use of the exemptions "where it makes sense" to do so. Congress, though, is not yet prepared to formally weigh in.

Neither of the two bills revising the Endangered Species Act that have passed through Pombo's committee this year - one written by Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza - include provisions affecting Section 4(d). In any event, Pombo put the odds at only "50-50" that the endangered species bills will get a House vote in the short time remaining this congressional session.[/quote]
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The two bills they refer to here are:

HR 2933
and
HR 1662

Vicki