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July 13, 2005

Endangered Species Act Could Become Extinct

Some days it's hard to be a Californian. It's bad enough that we have to live with everyone laughing at us about our Hollywood governors who have trouble with the English language and presidents who star in movies with chimps named Bonzo. Now House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) is trying to sink the Endangered Species Act(ESA), which protects flora and fauna threatened by extinction. Pombo has made the "modernization" of the ESA, as he calls it, his primary task in office. His idea of modernization includes sweeping changes in legislation that will make it more difficult to list plants and animals and to protect their habitat. It also calls for the program to end entirely in 2015, probably because there will be nothing left to protect after his new changes.

A staff discussion draft of the bill, leaked to various interest groups, suggests the committee may add more requirements for listing a species, extend deadlines for critical habitat, beef up the requirements for recovery plans, require payments for property owners whose land is affected by the law, offer exemptions for invasive species and cut the entire program in 10 years.

More at: NRDC.ORG: House Bill Would Downsize Endangered Species Act

We learn about the Endangered Species Act as school children, and we are proud of the fact that our government is willing to place some importance on the protection of our environment. It's the kind of legislation that sets our country apart, right? We're no third world country struggling to feed our children and such. Sure, the policies of the ESA may occassionally cause some annoyance to construction plans and such, but that's the price we have to pay to protect our country's natural heritage. Blaming the ESA for getting in the way of development irritates me - people seem to think they're entitled to do anything. Well, I can't set up an oil refinery in my backyard because it's zoned for residential, so why should you be able to set up a polluting marina on an area zoned as salmon and steelhead breeding grounds?

It all comes down to money. The ESA gets in the way of easy money. And by that I mean that I am highly skeptical that the ESA blocks development so much as makes it more expensive. Developers either have to find alternative plots they can build on, or comply with environmental protection policies - like building the fish elevators and stairways that help fish migrate past dams.

I'm all for reform of the Endangered Species Act, but I think it needs more PR and more straightforward classification processes. Congressman Pombo argues that the ESA doesn't work because species are never taken off the list. My take on it is if the ESA even performs well enough to keep some species from complete extinction, then it's worth keeping it, despite it's annoyance to developers. I'd rather we put our time, effort and funding into making it a more effective act than scraping it altogether. Anything is better than nothing in this case.

What's shocking to me is the number of potentially endangered species candidates that are put forward every year compared to the number actually accepted by Congress and listed. For example, of the over 300 species that made the candidate list in 2002, only 11 actually made the Endangered Species Lists. A claim of endangerment is not like a claim of innocent until proven guilty - if you can't provide undeniable proof of threat or endangerment and the elements which threaten the species, your species is not going to make the lists. Getting onto the lists appears to be a matter of careful statistics gathering, filing all the right stuff, and a bit of luck. PR for the animal doesn't hurt either - your cute little sea otter is more likely to make the list than some obscure form of snail.

As of July 13th, 2005, the US Fish and Wildlife claims 1264 species under the protection of the ESA - 518 animal species and 746 plant species.

Posted by sorsha at July 13, 2005 12:25 PM