Posted on 03/30/2006 7:41:04 AM PST by SmithL
Prospects are fading for a rewrite of the nation's endangered species protection law this year as key senators hesitate to move anything that would have to be meshed with legislation written last fall by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy.
Some senators have expressed concern that any bill they pass, even if it gains bipartisan consensus, would still have to be blended with Pombo's aggressive rewrite. And Pombo's bill goes way too far in easing environmental protection, according to many critics.
For example, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., the chairman of a key subcommittee, has said he fears any Senate bill might be "Pombo-ized" when it goes to a conference committee where House and Senate versions are reconciled.
Still, Chafee and three other senators continue trying to hammer out a bipartisan agreement even if chances are slim.
"But we'll keep working," Chafee told reporters in Washington on Tuesday, according to Congress Daily. "I want to keep the door open a crack."
In September, Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, introduced a comprehensive rewrite of the Endangered Species Act and pushed it all the way through the House in just 10 days.
It is the closest Pombo has ever come to reaching his career-long goal of weakening one of the nation's most powerful environmental laws. Pombo contends the act is ineffective and unduly burdensome on landowners.
His bill would eliminate critical habitat designations, loosen the standard used to analyze whether species are "jeopardized" by projects and temporarily exempt endangered species rules covering the use of pesticides, according to an analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The bill also would provide financial incentives to landowners who improve habitat for endangered species while making it easier for landowners to develop land in ways that would be restricted under the current law.
Critics, especially environmentalists, said Pombo has fudged facts to gain support for his bill.
For example, one controversial provision would require the government to compensate landowners if they are prevented from developing their land because of endangered species. In an op-ed published last month in the Sacramento Bee, Pombo said such reimbursement would be based on value determined under the land's current use.
"In other words," Pombo wrote, "if the land in question is farmland, the payment is based on its value as farmland. It would never be based on the contention that the land would have a higher value if developed for housing or industry."
That seems to contradict what the bill would actually do.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the bill would require payment based on the fair market value of the "foregone use." That means that if a landowner was not allowed to develop because of endangered species, the landowner would be compensated for the value of the proposed development, even if the land is still farmland.
Pombo's office did not dispute that discrepancy, but said in an e-mailed statement that the bill would restrict compensation to projects that were "consistent with current state and local land-use laws, not hypothetical proposals and scenarios that have been bandied about by those who oppose compensating landowners for takings."
Critics don't buy it.
"Either he's trying to hide the ball -- hide what his bill is going to do -- or he doesn't know what his bill is going to do," said Michael Bean, chairman of wildlife programs at Environmental Defense.
The Congressional Research Service also said the bill would diminish endangered species conservation on federal lands and shift the focus of conservation, if it is still a priority, to private land, where the government would have a heightened obligation to pay cash through incentives or compensation to landowners for habitat preservation.
Pombo says his bill was needed because only 10 of the roughly 1,300 species protected under the act have recovered. That is less than a 1 percent success rate, according to Pombo.
"I think after you look at the facts, there's no question that a good bill can be delivered and needs to be delivered to the White House," said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the committee headed by Pombo.
"This do-nothing attitude is not an acceptable position," he added.
Still, prospects for Pombo's bill were always uncertain in the Senate for several reasons. The Senate has traditionally been more cautious than the House about changing the Endangered Species Act.
In addition, the key subcommittee is headed by Chafee, who is aligned more closely with environmentalists than Pombo.
Chafee reports to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who recently told Chafee that he wants a bill in the full committee by the end of March. But Inhofe's committee is closely divided on many environmental issues and his ability to pass a potentially controversial bill on endangered species in an election year is questionable.
"We were going to have one by the end of March, and hope to have a bill soon," said Environment and Public Works Committee spokesman Matt Dempsey.
Asked if Inhofe planned to introduce his own legislation if no bipartisan deal could be reached, Dempsey was non-committal.
"Inhofe's hopeful for a bipartisan bill," Dempsey said.
Momentum in the Senate hit a snag last month when the Keystone Center, a nonpartisan public policy group, notified a half-dozen senators that it had failed to come up with a plan for reforming the endangered species law. A group of senators last year asked the Keystone Center to try to develop a consensus-based approach to reforming the law.
The Keystone Center assembled a group of 23 representatives from a spectrum of interests, including environmental and developer groups.
Bean, an environmental representative to the effort, said the ambition of Pombo's bill might have killed it.
"I think Mr. Pombo overplayed his hand in the House because his bill was so extreme," Bean said. "Even a bill that looks balanced, reasonable and consensus-oriented in the Senate could ... be in the conference Pombo-ized, or become something the Senate could not support."
The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan public policy research arm of Congress, reported that Pombo's bill "would eliminate or modify many of the current requirements applicable to federal lands and lessen the extent to which federal lands and managers have special responsibilities with respect to the conservation of species under the ESA."
The report added that if saving species is still a goal, more conservation would therefore have to take place on private land which, "in turn, appears to depend on the availability of federal funds to pay for grants and any required compensation."
Kennedy, the spokesman for Pombo's committee, said his office had not seen the analysis but agreed that private land is important habitat.
"Given the fact that roughly 90 percent of endangered species in America have habitat on private land, how else are we going to improve the law's 1 percent success rate and end all the conflict?" he said.
Thank you for posting this.
One would think that after the disgraceful actions of the Greens and whaco enviros over the last 40 years, Pombo should be praised by all sensible citizens. When we cannot drill for oil because of supposedly harming some outlandish bug or frog or snail darter or God knows what, we need some sensible enviro plans which allow humans to come first in our priorities.
My husband builds power lines in California. A lot of the time the deteriorated poles they are replacing are on environmentally protected land. It can take the environazis up to 3 years to complete a study to determine if it's environmentally safe to put a new pole in the same hole the old pole was in. Or at the worse move in 3' from the old pole.
"Pombo should be praised by all sensible citizens. "
Let me be one to praise him for trying to do the right thing and ix what is borken in the Endangered Species Act.
"Critics, especially environmentalists .. " this is typical of the media. They carry water for the liberal point-of-view but gave no space for the views of property owners.
I am reading a Forbes speech on economics and he mentions the 5 Principles of Prosperity:
1. Rule of law
2. Property rights
3. Low taxes
4. Make it easy to launch businesses (low regulation)
5. Free trade
Note #2 - Property rights, a key part of our human rights and our economic system that leads to prosperity.
ESA is an attack on property rights, and as such it is an attack on our freedoms and an attack on our prosperity.
Protecting species should not come at the expense of our rights or our prosperity ...
"we need some sensible enviro plans which allow humans to come first in our priorities".
Exactly.
It's a bad law, made possible by a bad treaty that keeps it from being out-right unconstitutional and both the bad law and the bad treaty should be repealed by Senators based on the oath they take as each is sworn in as a Senator to protect and defend our constitution!!!
Why would one want to own ANYTHING, it you couldn't control it's usage? In this country, we just pretend we control our property and it's a sick joke!!!
You musn't read "slate" young lady! It's silly and subversive, don'tcha know??? I mean Michael Kinsley? REALLY!!!
“The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.” – Captain Jack Sparrow
Don't tell me THAT!!! Now I might hafta go back and read beyond page one!!!
There was more than one page?
It's actually called fascism.
If we can make those endangered species die they won't be endangered any longer, problem eliminated.
Anything less than Pombo's bill is a defeat for everyone that enjoys any kind of freedom.
BTTT
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