Gop Stalks Endangered Species Act

With regulatory reform near the top of congressional Republicans’ agenda, some GOP lawmakers want Congress to put a freeze on any new government action under the Endangered Species Act.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, introduced legislation Wednesday that would prevent the federal government from listing any new species as endangered or threatened pending congressional rewriting of the Endangered Species Act.

The measure, introduced in the House by Texas GOP Rep. Lamar Smith, also would place a freeze on any new critical habitat designations and lift other government agencies’ need to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding endangered species.

“Amendments are needed to restore the constitutional protection of private property rights that for too long has been ignored by Congress and Washington rulemakers,” Hutchison said.

“It is important that we stop the continuing abuse of regulatory authority until Congress acts to provide the regulators new direction,” she added.

Advocates of a pared-down Endangered Species Act are seeking to rewrite the legislation to limit the number of new listings, beef up protections for private property owners and guarantee them compensation if they lose value or use of their land as a result of government action.

Environmentalists contend that the proposals would gut the 1973 act, reduce protections for vulnerable plant and animal species, and cost the government untold dollars to compensate affected landowners.

The moratorium proposal, predictably, wasn’t applauded in the environmental community.

“It’s interesting they don’t want to put a moratorium on the things that cause a species to go extinct,” said Kevin Kirchner of the Sierra Club’s Legal Defense Fund.

“As much as folks like Senator Hutchison and others like to use it as a whipping boy, the Endangered Species Act is one of the most popular environmental statutes in the United States,” he added. “People have a pretty fundamental sense that we ought not do things that cause other species to go extinct.”