Gorton Expects Relaxed Species Act Senate Committee Chairman Continues To Oppose Proposals

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said Tuesday he remains optimistic the Senate will vote to change the Endangered Species Act this year. He said presidential politics would complicate the matter next year.

“Before Christmas, I have every hope and every intention to work for the passage of moderate, balanced changes in the Endangered Species Act,” Gorton told reporters.

Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the act, continues to oppose some of Gorton’s proposals to ease federal protection of fish and wildlife, Gorton said.

But Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., has made reform of the law a priority, Gorton said.

“For the sake of our economy, for the sake of our world communities, for the sake of justice, it is time the act be amended this year,” Gorton said.

“Almost everything is likely to be more politicized next year during the course of the presidential election campaign than it is now,” he said.

“I would much prefer to have a substantive, reasonable and balanced solution which recognizes humans and human concerns than I would another election issue for the presidential campaign of 1996,” he said.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Task Force on the Endangered Species Act, told reporters last week he was confident the House would complete action on a bill to change the act this year.

But Pombo said the prospects were only “50-50” that the Senate would have time to pass the bill this year.

Gorton said Tuesday, “I’m more hopeful than some others.

“I believe the House in September or October will pass such a bill. I believe there is a very real chance the Senate will do the same,” he said.

Gorton and Sen. Bennett Johnston, D-La., have introduced a bill that would ease requirements that the government save threatened and endangered species from extinction regardless of the cost.

Their bill would allow the secretary of the interior to decide against saving a species when the cost was too great. It also would eliminate the government’s ability to prohibit destruction of fish and wildlife habitat on federal lands, a power the Supreme Court recently upheld in a case involving loggers from Sweet Home, Ore.

Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, is the chairman of the Senate subcommittee reviewing the act - the Environment and Public Works subcommittee on drinking water, fisheries and wildlife.

He shares many of Gorton’s concerns and likely will introduce a bill with similarities to Gorton’s in September, Gorton said.

“My concern, to be very blunt, has always been not so much his subcommittee but Chairman Sen. Chafee and his committee as a whole.”

Chafee is one of the few Senate Republicans who enjoys support from national environmental groups. He traditionally has received favorable ratings from the League of Conservation Voters.

“Senator Chafee and I will have some differences on what the bill should consist of,” Gorton said. “I think my views are shared by almost all and perhaps all of the other Republicans on the committee and perhaps some of the Democrats as well.”