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002436 tended to "encourage creative partnerships be- tween the public and private sectors. . . in the interest of species and habitat conservation." It indicated that the Department of the Interior should utilize section I O(a): [tJo approve conservation plans which provide long-term commitments regarding the conser- vation of listed as well as unlisted species and long-term assurances to the proponent of the conservation plan that the terms of the plan will be adhered [Q and that further mitigation reo quirements will only be imposed in accordance with the terms of the plan. H.R. REp. No. 835, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 I, reprinted in 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 2830. Although section lO(a) of the ESA has stim- ulated a number of HCPs, and lofty rhetoric about "historic" and "model" collaborative planning between environmental and develop- mental imcrests, the hard reality is that the HCP process has not yet lived up to its promise. Many HCPs have been initiated in the last decade, but less than twenty-five have been approved. At least one dozen HCPs are in process, including plans that address the California gnarcatcher, Stephen's kangaroo rat, and San Joaquin kit fox in California. With few exceptions, the HCPs that have been approved have involved small areas or a limited number of landowners. The successful HCPs have emerged only after sev- eral years of biological investigation, planning, and negotiation. Many conservation planning efforts have failed outright or have floundered for lack of adequate funding or an inability to reach consensus. The development community is growing increasingly frustrated with the length of time required to resolve endangered species conflicts through thc HCP process and the inability of HCPs to remove lcgal risks as- sociated with the subsequent listing of new spe- cies. There is also growing acknowledgmem of the inequity of imposing the cost of endangered species conservation largely on thc shoulders of development interests and their customers while the rest of society that benefited from the de. velopment of historic habitat areas (develop. ment that triggcred the listings in the first place) gets off scot-free. Yet, despite these problems, in the absence of a federal agency "nexus" to trigger the sec. tion 7 consultation process, the HCP process is the only vehicle currently available to private interests to resolve endangered species con- flicrs and obtain a permit to carry out activities that incidentally harm or harass endangered and threatened species. It provides the procedural mechanism for long-term resolution of endan- gered species/development conflicts. Despite Secretaty Babbitt's good intentions and unless the Secretaty addresses the institu- tional problems of the HCP process, he is likely to fail in his attempt to avoid more "economic train wrecks" like the spotted owl controversy. The ESA: Mandate without Funding The ESA, more than any other major federal environmental law, is administered with com- pletely inadequate funding. Despite lofty rhet. oric in the ESA, for rhe last twenty years the American people through its elected represen- rarives have starved the ESA program. Congress appropriates less than '50 million annually to FWS for endangered species conservation. This amount is equivalent to the amount spent on a couple of miles of the federal Interstate High- way System, about a quarter.mile of the new Los Angeles subway, and is less than the amount spent on pizza in Washington, D.C. The absence of adequate funding makes it more difficult to resolve conflicts because the federal government never has any money to contribute to understanding the problem or to seeking solutions. Funher, recovery plans are typically nO! initiated until well after a species is listed, if at all. A5 a result, the first major hurdle confronted by evety HCP effort is raising the funds necessary to collect biological data and prepare the planning and environmental documents that are required for a conservation plan. In almost alllarge.scale HCPs to date, these funds have been raised almost entirely from the affected landowners. The landowner at San Bruno Mountain contributed over S 1 million for the biological slUdies concerning the mis. sion blue, callippe silverspot, and bay check- erspot butterflies that lived in the grassland habitat of rhe mountain. Since 1989, landown. ers in Riverside County have contributed '25 million to fund HCP efforts concerning the Ste- phen's kangaroo rat. In southern California, landowners are nO! only paying for the cost of preparing the slUdies and plans for the gnat- catcher, they are also paying for state agency review of the pIans. In Kern County, all of the funding for the county's HCP efforts for the San Joaquin Valley has been provided by the Cali- fornia Division of Oil and Gas from revenues derived from the oil and gas industty. Congressman Gerty SlUdds, new chair of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, has proposed to alleviate this prob. lem by establishing a revolving fund that would be used to assist in funding HCP planning ef- forts. This is a good first step, but should be supplemented with dramatic new funding sources that spread the cost of endangered spe- cies conservation beyond the few landowners Continued on page 65 NR&EjSUMMER 1993 The ESA, more than a1l.V other major federal environmental law, is administered with comptetery inadequate funding. 23