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For
Immediate Release
April 27, 2004
Chairman
Pombo Issues ESA Report,
"A
Mandate for Modernization"
Resources Committee to begin efforts to
repair broken law
Washington,
DC - House Resources
Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo
(R-CA) issued a report on the Endangered
Species Act (ESA) today entitled,
The ESA at 30: A Mandate for
Modernization. The full committee
will begin its efforts to improve the
Act with a hearing tomorrow,
Wednesday,
April 28, 2004 at 10:00 am in 1324
Longworth.
"On its
thirtieth anniversary, it is now more
clear than ever that the Endangered
Species Act has failed," Chairman Pombo
said. "Unintended consequences have
rendered this a broken law that checks
species in for conservation and
recovery, but never checks them out.
Congress has a responsibility to improve
the ESA to focus our efforts on results
for species recovery, and that begins
here at the Resources Committee."
The
Endangered Species Act was signed into
law by President Richard Nixon in 1973,
giving the federal government the
authority to identify endangered species
and the means to conserve and recover
them to healthy populations. In this
light, the Act has failed. According to
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, only
12 of the law's roughly 1300 protected
species have recovered.
"Many
observers of the Endangered Species Act
have gauged the law's performance on how
many species are listed annually and
have avoided extinction," Pombo
continued. "However, merely preventing
extinction is not a long-term measurable
success, nor was it the intent of the
law. The law was intended to conserve
and
recover
America's endangered
species."
"In
essence, the ESA has been an inflexible
managed-care program for species that
has applied the same treatment to
roughly 1300 species over the last
thirty years," Pombo said. "Only twelve
have recovered. That is less that a .01
percent rate of success, and that is
unacceptable. If this were the state of
American medicine today, there would be
outrage."
"There
must be more accountability for results
in the ESA. We have to update and
modernize this law for the 21st century,
change our approaches, and focus on
improving our results in recoveries. My
report clearly illustrates this need by
outlining the failures and the
unintended consequences."
The
Resources Committee will hold its first
hearing on ESA modernization tomorrow on
H.R. 2933, the Critical Habitat Reform
Act, authored by Rep. Dennis Cardoza
(D-CA). This legislation will help focus
the Act on results for species recovery
by moving the designation of critical
habitat into the recovery planning stage
for listed species.
Chairman
Pombo's report:
The ESA at 30: A Mandate for
Modernization
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