DENVER -- For the first time in three decades, critics of the
Endangered Species Act are building momentum to rewrite the law implemented to
save America's threatened flora and fauna, from the star cactus to the grizzly
bear.
Weakening the law has been a priority for Republican Western
governors, and a second Bush term provides critics of the act a prime
opportunity to push Congress for changes that would help open up vast stretches
of wilderness for development.
US Representative Richard Pombo of California, chairman of the House
Natural Resources committee, is expected to introduce legislation this session
to revamp the law.
Activists on both sides of the issue say there is little chance of
truly gutting the act, given its mission of saving plants and animals, but
environmentalists fear it could become significantly watered down.
When the 30-year-old act became law, most Americans saw it as a way
to save charismatic megafauna such as the bald eagle or the grizzly bear.
Currently, 518 US species are listed under the act.
But business leaders say it imposes rules and protections that cost
them money and halt commerce.
"I think that the chances for improving and modernizing the act are
very high in this Congress," said Jim Sims of The Partnership for the West, a
business group that advocates changing the act.
Problems arise for business in areas that are habitat for a species
listed as endangered. Logging, oil and gas drilling are halted and roads cannot
be built; recreational activity can be curtailed.
The most controversial proposal is to change the law so it requires
the use of "best science" rather than "best available science" to determine if
a species is endangered. If the research wasn't conclusive, then more studies
would have to be done, which would probably delay the listing of a species.
Right now any citizen can petition the US Fish and Wildlife Service
to list a plant or animal species. If available science shows the species is in
trouble, the service will begin the steps to have it listed.
Critics say that means a species can be listed without much
documentation
Governor Bill Owens of Colorado, chairman of the Western Governors'
Association, said recently that the Endangered Species Act has been a failure
at its mission of bringing back species and must be changed.
"More than 1,000 species have been listed under the act, but less
than 1 percent has been successfully recovered," Owens told a business
group.
But there have been success stories. The grizzly bear is doing well
and other species are recovering such as the alligator, the brown pelican and
the gray wolf in the Rocky Mountains.
Another proposed change is to require that requests to conduct
certain activities on private land affected by the act be answered within a
certain time.
But Ralph Morgenweck, regional director of the US Fish and Wildlife
Service, argues that rules are strict because a species is not listed until it
is at death's door. "The species are in bad shape. They didn't get that way
overnight and it will not go in the other direction overnight," he
said.