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For Immediate
Release
Thursday, May 17, 2004
Administration
Responds to Pombo's Request on Extension for
California Tiger Salamander Listing
(WASHINGTON,
D.C.) - Interior
Assistant Secretary Craig Manson responded
favorably to a request from House Resources
Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA),
petitioning the court for a six month
extension in the proposal to list
California's tiger salamander as threatened.
"The data in
this case is incomplete at best, as the
judge himself has asserted," said Pombo. "I
applaud Assistant Secretary Manson's
decision to hold the final rule until a
thorough review of the science can be
conducted."
As a result of
litigation brought by the Center for
Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service is required to issue a rule
related to listing the Central
California tiger salamander as a
"threatened" species under the federal
Endangered Species Act (ESA). In a letter to
Judge Manson, the Chairman requested that
the Service petition the court for an
extension as provided by the ESA. In his
decision, the judge stated that, given the
uncertainties in the data "the agency would
be doing the wrong thing" if it did not
"take additional time."
"Given the
fact that data error is the reason for most
of the delistings under the ESA, it is
critical that we focus more on science in
the listing process," Pombo continued. "As
my committee begins to consider ways to
modernize the Act legislatively, support for
basing decisions on peer reviewed science
must continue. Such decisions will help
focus the full force of the law on species
recovery, which is where the law intended it
be."
According to
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, only
twelve of the Act's roughly 1300 protected
species have recovered in its thirty-year
history. Unintended consequences and a
misguided focus on "listing" species have
rendered the ESA an unsustainable, broken
law that checks species in, but never checks
them out.
Several other
members of the California
delegation, including Reps. George Miller
(D-7th), Devin Nunes (R-1st), George
Radanovich (R-19th), Ellen Tauscher(D-10th)
and Doug Ose (R-3rd), also support the six
month extension.
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For more
information read the Chairman Pombo's
ESA Paper
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