Environmental Hearing Set For Lewiston Senate Subcommittee To Meet In June On Reform Of Endangered Species Act

Dirk Kempthorne is taking the U.S. Senate’s Endangered Species Act reform show on the road.

The Idaho Republican has chosen Lewiston to be the stage on June 3. At 2 p.m. at the Ramada Inn, a Senate subcommittee will hold a public hearing on the future of the nation’s toughest environmental law.

The setting is a hotbed of concern about endangered animals and the cost of saving them.

Some of the last wild Snake River salmon will be swimming past Lewiston, where barge traffic could be halted by efforts to save the fish.

In the mountains to the east, loggers and miners worry that salmon and grizzly bear recovery efforts will cost them jobs.

Conservationists also will rally that day, hoping to keep the law strong enough to save endangered species in the face of relentless industrial pressure.

Those listening will be members of the Senate’s Fisheries, Drinking Water and Wildlife Subcommittee, which Kempthorne chairs.

“I’ve worked diligently to get senators into the field, where all citizens - including resource users, conservationists, property owners, local and state officials and resource managers - can tell them exactly what’s right and what’s wrong” with the Endangered Species Act, Kempthorne said Thursday.

“The act dominates land management in Idaho and the West, so I’m pleased we’re holding our first field hearings here.”

Another hearing is scheduled June 1 in Roseburg, Ore., in spotted-owl territory. More hearings will be held throughout the country.

Brian Whitlock, a Kempthorne spokesman, said the hearings won’t focus on the Endangered Species Act bill introduced Tuesday by Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.

In a recent speech in Moscow, Idaho, Kempthorne said he does not want to gut or repeal the act. “But I do believe it must be significantly reformed, and it must be done this year.”