New Effort To Reform Species
Act Launched; Ecos Not Amused

WASHINGTON — Rep. Joe Skeen says the Endangered Species Act has gotten out of hand.

``Right now, just about everything is getting settled in court. That's millions and millions of dollars that are used up in court that aren't going to help the species,'' said the New Mexico Republican, who was among House GOP members who introduced a major overhaul of the law last week.

Their 80-page measure would give landowners greater influence in determining how the law affects private land in everything from the listing of a species as "threatened" to the development of recovery plans for protected wildlife.

Skeen said that would reduce lawsuits because the work of recovery teams and other governmental agencies that determine the listing of a species as endangered would be reviewed by scientists outside the federal government. Peer review also would be used for removing a species from the endangered list and designating areas of critical habitat to protect species.

The current law is used by environmental law firms as ``simply a convenient way to make a living,'' with their lawsuits never leading to improvement of conditions for endangered species, he said.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the main sponsor, contended the existing law has been unsuccessful in restoring species populations and has ``created nationwide dissent because of its adverse effects on private landowners, thereby creating disincentives for protecting wildlife and needed habitat.''

Heather Weiner, a lawyer for the environmental activist group Earth Justice in Washington, D.C., said she had not seen the bill's specifics but was skeptical it would be acceptable to environmentalists.

``Don Young, this is a guy who has said in public hearings he doesn't care if an endangered species lives or dies,'' she said. ``This is a guy who's called the National Audubon Society a bunch of radical environmentalists.''

(Audubon "radical?" The same bunch whose leader vowed nearly 30 years ago to "run those damned Basque sheepherders off our public lands?" Radical? Nah, couldn't be. That's like calling Fidel Castro a Marxist. — Ed.)

The bill would let states and local governments prevent the listing of species as endangered if they agree to improve a species' status on their own; require solicitation of information from the public and local governments before listing a species as endangered; let private landowners participate in lawsuits brought by environmentalists if the lawsuits would affect the landowner's property; and require that species be protected in a way to provide the least social and economic costs.

Weiner said environmentalists don't have a problem involving private citizens in planning, but said no firm with a direct economic interest in land that serves as habitat should be involved in drafting recovery plans or defining areas for protection.

``If a private landowner is a timber company that would directly benefit from having weak regulations, it shouldn't be involved,'' she said. ``It's the fox guarding the hen house.''