Sierra Club Takes on New Endangered Species Act HR 3824
Now HR 3824, passed in November, is drawing constant fire from environmental groups. The bill was sponsored by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (D-Calif.) and strikes many of the provisions of the previous Endangered Species Act. One of the most contentious points in the legislation is over the protection of “critical habitats.”
Brian Kennedy, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Pombo, says that the critical habitat designation is primarily driven by legislation, not by science.
“With the current act,” Kennedy said, “you have a lot of species that have no recovery plan. This is largely because once they are listed, the process gets bogged down in issues like critical habitat. It focuses the mechanics of the bill, not the goal, which is recovery. By getting rid of a lot of the language about critical habitats, threatened or endangered species will go right from being listed to recovery.”
Sean Cosgrove of the Sierra Club disagrees. Cosgrove is the organization’s senior Washington representative.
“There are so many problems with this bill,” Cosgrove said, “it’s hard to know where to start. The critical habitat issue is just one of the major points that draws immediate attention. Whether an animal has a recovery plan or not, it still needs a certain amount of habitat in which to live.”
Cosgrove further explained that the bill has many provisions that favor private developers. Under the Pombo bill, he said, a developer with a threatened or endangered species on his property can propose a development project and submit to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approval. If denied, provisions in the bill allow the developer to then seek a payoff from the government for a development that was never built. Theoretically, the same developer could propose a similar development the following year and undergo the same process, each year siphoning tax dollars out of conservation.
“The critical habitat provisions of the original ESA identify the specific types of habitats that those threatened and endangered species need,” Cosgrove said. “Pombo’s people will tell you that it shuts down public land. That’s simply not the case.”
Kennedy points out that the bill also focuses on making sure that real science is being used to ensure that species are listed properly.
“Some of the opponents of the bill have said that it will make adding a species to the threatened or endangered list nearly impossible,” Kennedy said. “It will make it harder, but for all the right reasons. The number one reason a species has been delisted is not because it was recovered, but because of data error in listing it in the first place. The congressman wants those decisions to be based on real science, not best guesses.”
He notes that by doing this, fewer taxpayer funds will be spent correcting mistakes. The funds required for the Pombo bill are pretty stout to begin with; the bill carries an estimated cost of $2.7 billion.
“One of the things that keeps FWS from developing recovery plans is lack of funding and lack of staff,” Cosgrove said. “Nothing in the Pombo bill takes care of those.”
Cosgrove is also quick to point out that provisions hidden away in the bill remove protections that have little to do with species recovery. The bill lessens protections on pesticide use, he said.
“One of the things that the Pombo bill does is waive the restrictions on pesticide use,” Cosgrove said. “We’re talking persistent pesticides that are used near waterways and that will be detrimental to the lives of the humans who work on the farms that start using harmful pesticides. Why we would want to waive any oversight on pesticides at all much less in conjunction with weakening protections for endangered species is beyond me.”
Kennedy said the bill will ultimately lead to greater conservation of wild species, despite what his opponents say. In addition, he said the bill had nearly unanimous support in the House from both Democrats and Republicans.
“415 out of 435 members of the House voted for the bill,” he said. “You don’t get a much stronger bipartisan mandate than that.”
The bill is currently stalled in the Senate, but there are a number of other bills that are targeting similar environmental legislation. Where the Pombo bill goes for now is uncertain, but environmental groups have pledged to continue the fight.
“They say that the ESA is a failure because there are so few species recovered and off the list.” Cosgrove said. “It was written to keep species from going extinct. In that regard, it’s a complete success.”
