Washington – Setting the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of endangered species protections in 30 years, the House Resources Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would strengthen the hand of private-property owners and make it harder for federal officials to set aside large swaths of habitat for imperiled plants and animals.
Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., who has sought to revamp the Endangered Species Act for more than a decade, said the bill would make the landmark 32- year-old law more effective.
“The whole underlying premise of what we’re trying to do is recover species,” Pombo said, adding that his legislation would ensure “individual property owners are not forced to shoulder the financial burden of conserving endangered species for all Americans.”
GOP leaders are eager to move the bill, and it is expected to pass by a comfortable margin next week. The question remains whether Senate Republicans, who have begun holding hearings on the issue but have yet to introduce legislation, can pass a bill that would allow the two sides to reach a compromise next year.
Many Democrats, as well as some Republicans and an array of environmental groups, have voiced concerns about Pombo’s measure and suggested it would not pass as it now stands.
The measure, which passed 26 to 12, with eight Democrats voting aye, would require the government to compensate landowners if it declared some of their property off-limits to development to protect federally listed species and to decide such cases within 180 days.
Developers and property owners have hailed the bill as a long overdue rebalancing of the law, while environmentalists decried that it undermines critical protections.
Critics of the current law note only a handful of the roughly 1,800 plants and animals listed over the past 30 years have fully recovered, while supporters counter an equally small number have gone extinct during that period.
“Even schoolchildren know you can’t protect plants and animals if you don’t protect the places where they live,” said Susan Holmes, senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, an advocacy group with headquarters in Oakland, Calif.
