A White Paper: Endangered Species Act of 1973

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M SUMMARY The Bad News is: 31 P14 NAR Z1 92D 1:3: • Impact of Act being extended The impact of the Endangered Species Act is being extended to regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency. • Biodiversity bills introduced Bills promoting biodiversity, if passed, will add one more layer to the environmental laws stopping development or human activity (other than hiking and camping) on federal lands and, it must be remembered, that the Federal government owns nearly 4.0 percent of the land in the country. If its use is withdrawn from the national economy, there will be a severe negative impact. • Judges now managing land So many Federal land management actions are being challenged in the courts that the judiciary is now managing the land. Many of these court challenges are brought on behalf of the Endangered Species -Act. The Good News is: • Private Property Act passes Senate The Private Property Rights Act, if passed, would mitigate one of the negative impacts of the Endangered Species Act. According to the Forbes article, "the Senate bill has some professional environmentalists up in arms. If each of their efforts to protect `biodiversity' carries a price tag, the terms of the debate shift in ways they do not like. It will no longer be: Should we protect the spotted owl? It becomes: How much as we willing to spend to protect the spotted owl ?" Note: The bill passed by nine votes; 17 Democrats teamed with 38 Republicans to "hand environmental extremists the biggest legislative defeat in their history, " the article says. This indicates a positive change in Congressional thinking - at least in the Senate. • Congress has affirmed public participation in technical decision - making A major provision of the Superfund Act mandates, during the process of determining the best cleanup methods for Superfund sites, that very specific activities be implemented to involve the public in hearings, comments and other participatory methods. EPA, the responsible agency, must provide a written record of its "Community Relations Program" for each site and, when the agency files its recommended technical method for cleaning up the site, a concurrent document lists all concerns of local citizens, how they were addressed and, if specific concerns were not addressed in the selected method, the agency must explain why they were not considered. This Congressional precedent shows a faith in the American people to contribute intelligent recommendations for technical (scientific) decisions and faith in the ability of an agency to explain complex issues to the public. -12- 4/92