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<br />Endangered Species Act, proposed by Senators Wirth and Metzenbaum, in <br />response to the recent Supreme court case of Lujan v. Defenders of <br />Wildlife. The Senators propose that a person with a demonstrated <br />interest in a threatened or endangered species be deemed to have <br />suffered a direct and particularized injury where any person takes or <br />is likely to take action which may harm or adversely affect any <br />species or its habitat. This is a very scary proposal. Too many of <br />the decisions under this Act are already made through litigation <br />rather than through good science. <br />Several other aspects of the ESA should be reformed to balance <br />economic development, including water resource development, and <br />endangered species. I think we need to eliminate inequities in the <br />Act's implementation that may impose burdensome procedures and <br />stricter standards on private land owners and non-federal parties than <br />those applied to federal agencies. We have to review the definition <br />of "take" under the Act. We need to look at critical habitat to <br />ensure that the Act designates critical habitat only if it is truly <br />critical. <br />The water community must come together with other regulated <br />communities and the environmental community to reform the Endangered <br />Species Act. We must stop leaving the very hard decisions that our <br />society must make to litigation and to limited arrogant biology. The <br />consequences are too great. <br /> <br />78 <br />