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Effort to overhaul law sinks with its chief sponsor
BY ALLISON A. FREEMAN, GREENWIRE, 11/08/06
With Democrats taking control of the House and still harboring hopes for a Senate takeover, endangered species advocates expect congressional efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act have ended.
Attempts at an ESA rewrite sunk in large part with the defeat of House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), who made revising the law one of his panel's top priorities the past two years. In his place, the committee is expected to be led by Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.), whose efforts on the act were mostly in reaction to Pombo's.
"I think there will be very little appetite to take up the endangered species act now," said David Hayes, former Interior Department deputy secretary during the Clinton administration. "As a practical matter, ESA is off the table, at least for the short term."
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also lost Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), who was key in negotiating with environmentalists on the act last year and standing against Pombo's ESA rewrite in the Senate. But analysts said that regardless of what party takes control of the Senate, it would be unlikely to move a comprehensive overhaul of such a controversial bill with such narrow margins.
"It has been a very highly politicized debate," Hayes said. "And there was never the passion for change in the Senate that saw with Pombo in the House, there is not a real champion."
Mike Hardiman, a lobbyist for property rights groups, said there could be more room for some changes on the act with Chafee gone, though he would not expect as strong a push for ESA rewrite as in the last Congress.
"It is much easier to negotiate with liberal Democrats than liberal Republicans -- at least you can make a deal with them," Hardiman said.
Democrats are more likely to focus their endangered species efforts on oversight of the administration's implementation of the act, environmentalists say. Democrats and environmentalists alike have blasted the Bush administration for crippling the act with low funding and scant critical habitat designations.
"What is dead is the extreme approach to ESA championed by Pombo," said Bob Irvin, senior vice president for conservation programs at defenders of wildlife. "But Rahall has worked hard on this issue and I think we're likely to see a fresh approach ESA, certainly greater oversight of how administration implementing the law."
Allegations of the administration meddling with science could also come to the fore, especially in the wake of documents released last month that showed Interior Deputy Secretary Julie MacDonald overruled scientific findings on behalf of affected landowners. Democrats have called for her investigation.
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