And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Posted at 08:26 a.m. PST; Monday, December 28, 1998
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/spec_122898.html
Endangered Species Act survives,
if not thrives, after 25 years
by Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Endangered
Species Act turned 25
today.
Since President
Richard Nixon signed
the act into law in
1973, it has been
revered and reviled
with equal zeal. Known
by fans as the "crown
jewel" of American
environmental law, it has withstood a quarter-century of
strenuous efforts to revise or repeal it.
It also has suffered from chronic underfunding and
political crossfire from a divided Congress and, as a
result, has lacked the financial muscle to force as many
changes as the law calls for.
Born in the activist era of Watergate, Vietnam and the
women's movement, the law was part of an emerging
environmental conscience. Its intent is to conserve
imperiled plants and animals, and to protect the habitats
necessary to their survival.
In the Northwest - where many of its most volatile
battles have been staged - it has been blamed for doing
too much and not enough.
Backers say that without it, many species would be
extinct instead of struggling to recover. To build on that
success, the law needs to be stronger, they say; the
federal government doesn't swing the hammer of the
Endangered Species Act (ESA) often or hard enough,
reducing its protections into paper promises.
But critics say the law is heavy-handed. It lacks
financial incentives that would help private landowners
do the right thing for rare plants and animals;
landowners who discover endangered species on their
property are given cause for concern, not celebration.
"If you went looking on your property and found gold,
your property value would go up," says Chuck
Cushman, a property-rights activist from Battle Ground,
Clark County. "If you found an endangered species, it
would go down."
Cushman's group, the Grassroots ESA Coalition, has
pulled 400 land-use organizations together from around
the country to lobby for changes in the ESA that would
give more leeway to private-property owners.
"We have to get people to the point where they say, `I
found an eagle on my property. I'm going to tell Fish
and Wildlife. This is going to be great,' " Cushman said.
The law has endured wave after wave of assault with its
roots intact. It was adopted with overwhelming and
bipartisan support: The U.S. Senate ratification was
unanimous; the House favored it 390-12.
Since 1992, Republican critics have put the law up for
reauthorization, but they have not succeeded in having it
opened to revision.
A bill rewriting the act, and weakening many of its
major provisions, cleared the House Natural Resources
Committee in 1995. But it never got to the full House
for a vote; a similar bill in the Senate never made it out
of committee.
Moratorium on listings lifted
Congress placed a moratorium on any new listing of
species, which has since been lifted. Another effort to
rewrite the law died during the past session of Congress.
For all the law's stamina, even its backers note its rather
thin track record: Just eight species have made it to full
recovery in 25 years. Some of its most celebrated
successes, including the rebuilding of bald eagle and
peregrine falcon populations, share credit with the ban
on DDT and private restoration efforts.
And the number of species in trouble has continued to
climb.
Twenty-five years ago, 109 species were listed either as
endangered or threatened under the new law. As of
October, 1,175 species were listed, and another 89 are
proposed for listing.
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