Endangered species bill a starting point for recovery efforts

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo got a surprise when he came to speak to the state House of Representatives – the representatives rejiggered their calendar so that they had one measure to vote on just as he arrived, and it was HJM 16, a memorial supporting Crapo’s work on a bipartisan bill to reform the Endangered Species Act. It passed unanimously on a voice vote.

“You guys really know how to set it up,” Crapo said to laughter. “I can’t figure out how you got it to be there just as I arrived – that’s really good scheduling.”

Crapo told the representatives he’s co-sponsoring the bill with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas, to do “three or four important things,” including allowing collaborative groups to participate in the management of endangered species and compensating landowners who take actions that benefit endangered species on their land through tax credits or “conservation banking.” The bill also sets up a prioritization system to make sure “the most important recovery actions … get to the top of the list,” and gives states a bigger role in managing species before they’re listed as endangered, “so we can start working ahead of the game.”

“On these points … we have been able to work with the environmental community to find agreement,” Crapo said. “I’m not standing here telling you that we have no conflict about our bill. But we have worked again, for years, to find those pieces. This is not a broad, comprehensive reform bill. It’s one that has four or five narrow but important changes that will make big differences, and on which we have significant consensus among people from different perspectives.” Next, he said, “We need to broaden that.”

Craig speaks out on immigration

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig told the state Senate he’s working for immigration reform. During peak agricultural season, Idaho has between 23,000 and 27,000 illegal foreign nationals working in the state, Craig said in an address to lawmakers. “Are they needed? Yes, they’re needed. But what’s wrong about that is they’re illegal. … They should be legal.”

He added, “Our country is great today not because we disallowed immigration, but because of the opposite. … But we controlled it, we managed it, and we allowed the kind of cultural assimilation that made those immigrants Americans first and foremost.” That’s what’s been missing from immigration policy for the past two decades, he said.

Mucking around in the milfoil milieu

House Agriculture Chairwoman Rep. Frances Field, R-Grand View, charms those who attend her committee meetings with her courteous welcome and her friendly insistence that everyone stand and introduce themselves at the start of the meeting. On Wednesday, when she got to Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, who was at the committee to back a bill on his favorite topic this year, Eurasian water milfoil, Anderson quipped: “I’m Representative Morty Milfoil.” Anderson’s been talking milfoil this year to everyone in sight, including an array of legislative committees. He then quickly clarified that he’s really Rep. Anderson.

And their families helped too

Senators were full of praise for the seven Idaho athletes now competing in the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, as they unanimously adopted SCR 123 last week in honor of the athletes. “It’s pretty exciting to have seven folks from Idaho competing,” said Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise. He added, “I think we should also pay tribute to the families of these athletes,” noting that many spent years helping their kids through training, buying gear and so on. “They are the unsung heroes of these Olympics.”

Most-secure file server around

North Idaho College President Michael Burke was describing how NIC moved into the former Kellogg City Hall to set up an outreach campus for the Silver Valley, during a Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee special hearing on community colleges, and he noted that NIC is using every inch of the building. “We occupy the entire building,” he told lawmakers. “Our file servers are now residing in the cell that prisoners were locked away in. We have probably the most-secure file servers in northern Idaho.”