4/14/2004 10:11:00
AM
To: National Desk, Environment Reporter
Contact: Dawn Collier of Pacific Legal Foundation,
916-362-2833, ext. 3029; Web:
http://www.pacificlegal.org
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Pacific
Legal Foundation today called for a true accounting of the Endangered Species
Act, pointing to a study released today showing that billions of dollars in
costs spent enforcing and complying with the ESA are not being reported to
Congress or the American people. The study, Accounting for Species: Calculating
the True Costs of the Endangered Species Act, was conducted by the Property and
Environment Research Center (PERC). PERC researchers found that the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (FWS) grossly underreported federal and state ESA costs in
its recent report to Congress, and completely ignored the private economic and
social costs of ESA compliance, which together easily total billions of dollars
a year.
The ESA requires the FWS to report to Congress annually on
ESA expenditures by federal agencies and states receiving grants under the Act.
In December, 2003, FWS released its Three-Year Summary of Federal and State
Endangered Species Expenditures, Fiscal Years 1998-2000, to account for three
years of missed reports.
PERC researchers found that the FWS report does not
provide an accurate or comprehensive assessment of the true costs of the ESA.
For example, the FWS reports that in 2000, state and federal expenditures
totaled $610.3 million. PERC estimates that the actual government costs
annually are as much as four times greater-or $2.4 billion. FWS also reports
that in the 11 years from 1989 to 2000, just over $3.5 billion of taxpayer
dollars was spent on ESA-related activities. According to PERC, the actual cost
of protecting species, adding private costs to government expenditures, may
easily reach or exceed $3.5 billion per year.
"PERC's study shows that the government has no idea what
the ESA is truly costing, but it does give us an idea of the enormous human
costs of ESA regulation-and they're often devastating. People have lost their
jobs, businesses, homes, farms, and even their lives to protect plants,
insects, and fish," said Emma T. Suarez , an attorney with Pacific Legal
Foundation, a public interest legal organization that is a national leader in
the effort to raise awareness of the ESA's impact on people.
"The government is accountable to the people, and good law
takes people into account," said Suarez. "When it comes to the ESA, a true
accounting for the law's impact on Americans begins with Fish and Wildlife
Service doing a better job at collecting the information it is supposed to
collect under the law. Furthermore, the ESA needs to be changed so that
information on impacts to local governments, communities, and individuals is
also collected."
"We're asking the government to account to the people for
a failed law that ignores human values," added Suarez.
"The FWS report does not come close to accounting for the
true costs to taxpayers and consumers of complying with the ESA," said report
authors Dr. Randy T. Simmons, a Senior Associate at PERC and a political
science professor at Utah State University, and Kimberly Frost. Dr. Simmons has
studied the Endangered Species Act extensively and is the author of a book on
endangered species written for high school students.
"We've spent trillions of dollars on the ESA and the few
species that have been delisted were not removed because of ESA protections.
Taxpayers deserve to know if we're getting what we pay for. An honest public
dialogue about the value and effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act must
take into account the costs incurred by taxpayers and the people being
regulated. The government is ignoring the human costs in the ESA equation,"
added Simmons and Frost.
WHY THE FWS COST REPORT IS INCOMPLETE AND INACCURATE
According to PERC's study, FWS omits the following
critical information in its 2003 cost report:
-- Not Reported: Actual costs to taxpayers; only estimates
are provided.
-- Not Reported: Government-wide costs. Only a handful of
federal agencies and departments affected by the ESA reported expenditures to
FWS. Costs that benefit multiple species, staff salaries and operations are not
reported.
-- Not Reported: Costs to taxpayers of litigating ESA
cases.
-- Not Reported: Costs to state and local entities of
implementing species recovery. State and local governments are responsible for
much of the implementation of the ESA. However, because there are no
standardized or required reporting procedures, only state and local
expenditures voluntarily reported are estimated in the report.
-- Not Reported: Additional costs to local governments
from ESA-caused interference with building schools, hospitals, roads, and other
infrastructure projects.
-- Not Reported: Costs to private landowners. 75 percent
of all listed species have portions or all of their habitat on privately owned
land, and FWS regulates 38 million acres of private land through conservation
plans. Landowners are not compensated for their losses from ESA regulations,
yet these enormous costs are not included in the FWS report.
-- Not Reported: Private costs such as development
projects being denied, delayed, or their scope reduced, which result in higher
home prices. Higher home prices and increased commute times cost consumers in
their pocketbook and day-to-day quality of life. Consumers on the lowest end of
the housing affordability spectrum disproportionately bear this burden.
-- Not Reported: Economic and social costs from regulatory
burdens placed on agricultural production, water use, forest management, and
mineral extraction. Costs to private industry are enormous and are passed on to
consumers in the form of higher prices. The costs to individuals who earn their
livelihoods in these industries is devastating. Farmers in the Klamath Basin
lost an estimated $53.9 million of crop value in 2001 when their irrigation was
cut off to protect fish.
-- Not Reported: Lost jobs, business, and tax revenue. FWS
does not report the costs of regulation that causes reduced business
activities, reduced personal income and tax revenues, and costs of public
assistance provided to individuals who have lost jobs. At least 130,000 jobs
were lost when more than 900 sawmills, pulp, and paper mills closed in mid-1990
to protect the northern spotted owl.
-- Not Reported: Costs of protecting foreign species.
HALF OF GOVERNMENT ESA DOLLARS SPENT ON JUST SEVEN
SPECIES
According to PERC, 50 percent of the total expenditures
reported by FWS for 2000 are for the top seven species, or just 0.6 percent of
the ESA list. Salmon species are by far the costliest, accounting for the top
five most expensive species in 2000. Fish make up a full eight of the top
ten.
THE ESA IS NOT SAVING SPECIES
According to FWS, as of December, 2003, 1,260 U.S. species
were listed as endangered and only 15 have been delisted. PERC reports that the
majority of the 15 delisted species were delisted because of original listing
data errors, such as inaccurate government surveys that undercount a species
later found to never have been endangered. Other species were conserved by
state agencies or private organizations.
ABOUT PLF AND PERC
PLF is a public interest legal organization and national
leader in the effort to raise awareness of the ESA's impact on people. PERC is
a nonprofit institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through the
markets. PERC conducts research and policy analysis on a wide variety of
natural resource issues. To read the PERC study, visit
http://www.pacificlegal.org
.