Truckee shrub might not be so endangered

WASHINGTON -- An otherwise modest Sierra Nevada bush is planted smack in the middle of a debate over how federal environmental laws work.

Officials on Tuesday formally proposed removing the Truckee barberry from the protective umbrella of the Endangered Species Act.

This happens only rarely. Sometimes, it's a triumphant occasion, if the once-endangered species has been restored and no longer needs a federal shield.

But in the case of the small, evergreen Truckee barberry, scientists have concluded it didn't deserve special federal protections in the first place.

"Once a species is on the (protected) list, you do get much more information than you had originally," Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris Tollefson said Tuesday.

Simply put, scientists now concede that the Truckee barberry isn't even a distinct species. Instead, the plant protected by the Endangered Species Act for the past 23 years has come to be recognized as synonymous with a run-of-the-mill shrub found from California to Canada.

That's quite a comedown for a plant that first attracted congressional attention in a 1975 Smithsonian Institution report. That report, and further study, led to the plant found along a small Nevada County portion of Truckee River floodplain to be designated as endangered in 1979.

For critics of the Endangered Species Act, this makes the Truckee barberry a case study in how the law has gone astray.

"Are we happy to see it delisted? Yeah," said Doug Heye, a spokesman for Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy. "But did it take too long? Yes ... for them to take five years to accept that there was a data error is just unacceptable."

But the Truckee barberry lessons can cut both ways. In particular, the long delay in getting the plant off the endangered species list illustrates the law of unintended consequences. It illustrates, as well, the outsized role that California plays in the broader push-and-pull between environmental protection and private property rights.

Two hundred and ninety-six plants and animals found in California are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. This is more than in any other state outside of tropical Hawaii.

Rural Western lawmakers, including Pombo, Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, and Rep. Gary Condit, D-Ceres, pushed during the 1990s to restrict the law's reach. Pombo and Radanovich both serve on the national advisory board of the National Wilderness Institute, a conservative private-property group that has tried since 1997 to get the Truckee barberry removed from federal protection.

The Western lawmakers' efforts to rewrite the environmental law stalled, but they did win some battles. Condit, for instance, won House support in 1995 for what would have been an extended moratorium on new endangered species listings. Ultimately, Congress imposed a less sweeping freeze on endangered species actions.

The Truckee barberry would be the first species removed from the Endangered Species Act rolls during the Bush administration. Only 33 species have ever been taken off the protected list.

The gray whale that swims off the California coast and the Aleutian Canada goose that spends its winters in San Joaquin Valley are examples of successful species recovery. They are outnumbered by species that have gone extinct or been redefined.