All Sides Attack Clinton Wildlife Plan Five-Acre Exemption For Homeowners Hit By Conservatives, Environmentalists

Western Republicans and environmentalists agree on at least one thing about the Endangered Species Act: They don’t like President Clinton’s plan to exempt most homeowners from the wildlife-protection law.

Despite dramatic differences over proposals to change the law, conservatives and conservationists agree there is no scientific basis for Clinton’s proposal to waive protection requirements for land owners of 5 acres or less in cases involving threatened species.

“It’s an arbitrary figure,” said Rep. Wes Cooley, R-Ore.

“It is not based on science,” said Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif.

“You will never find a biologist or scientist who will support that kind of activity.

“It is a political decision that they are making in an effort to divide people in this country. … They are trying to make it appear they have some interest in protecting private property rights,” he said.

Pombo is co-sponsoring a sweeping endangered-species reform package with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Resources Committee. The measure would require consideration of economic concerns as well as biological ones, limit protection of many subspecies and ease protection of habitat surrounding threatened species.

Environmentalists hate the Pombo-Young bill. They say it would gut the 1973 law and drive troubled species to extinction.

But they also are leery of the proposed homeowner exemption.

“A carte blanche 5-acre exemption does not make any sense,” said Jim Waltman, director of refuges and wildlife for The Wilderness Society.

“There may be some room in certain situations for some small-acre exemptions. But that depends on the species involved, the population numbers, the habitat,” he said.

Waltman added that under the Pombo-Young bill, “it is irrelevant because there won’t be any species to protect.”

Clinton announced in July he wanted to ease wetland and endangered-species restrictions on small-property homeowners with regulatory changes at the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department.

Under the proposed changes, “the vast majority of all American homeowners will never have to worry about endangered species or wetlands requirements,” the president said.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said 95 percent of Americans live on property of 5 acres of less.

“Although very few homeowners have any problems with threatened-species habitat, this proposal will offer property owners around the country an opportunity to plan … and to develop their property in most cases without fear of regulations,” Babbitt said earlier this year.

Interior Department spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna rejected criticism of the proposed exemption, which is subject to a public-comment period that ends later this month.

“We believe five acres or less does not materially affect the conservation of a species,” Hanna said Thursday.

The 5-acre rule is part of a 10-point plan the administration has offered as a way to streamline the law while maintaining maximum protection of wildlife. A key factor is a provision for habitat-conservation plans forged with large landowners, like timber companies.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., likes Clinton’s idea.

“You can drop out the smallest landowners because you have enough habitat protected on state lands, national forests and the largest land owners,” Dicks said.