preservation in the United States that would be economically attractive and resolve many of the objections to the Endangered Species Act. Thank you. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Mr. Easterbrook, thank you very much. Mr. Irvin. STATEMENT OF ROBERT IRVIN, DEPUTY VICE PRESIDENT FOR MARINE WILDLIFE AND FISHERIES CONSERVATION, CENTER FOR MARINE CONSERVATION Mr. IRVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In addition to my own organization this morning, the Center for Marine Conservation, I'm pleased to testify today on behalf of a number of other environmental groups, the Defenders of Wildlife, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Fund for Animals, Greenpeace, the Humane Society of the United States, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund and the Endangered Species Coalition, which consists of more than 200 environmental, civic, religious, health, business, and labor organizations from across the Nation. Unfortunately, I don't have my own book to plug this morning, but I do have a flower. And when you return to your office, each member of this committee will have one of these waiting for them. This is a rosy periwinkle. This plant produces a substance, two substances, actually, Vincristine and Vinblastine, which achieve a 99 percent remission rate in children suffering from leukemia. Mr. Chairman, this little flower saves lives. Fortunately, this flower, this plant, is not endangered. It's grown in nurseries. Its habitat in Madagascar has been virtually wiped out. But this plant is a symbol, it's a symbol of the values that the Endangered Species Act protects. I wish I could have brought a Houston toad for you. It produces an alkaloid that shows promise for treating heart disease. Or even a primrose, we have three species of primrose that are endangered that produce fatty acids that are useful in treating arthritis. But those species are endangered, and the Endangered Species Act protects them, protects their habitat and protects the potential for discovering miracle cures for diseases that afflict human beings. And in a very real sense, protects the keys to our own survival. Mr. Chairman, for 22 years the Endangered Species Act has worked and worked well, ever since it was signed into law by President Nixon in 1973. I think the National Research Council has really summed it up very well in their report where they say, "The ESA has successfully prevented some species from become extinct. Retention of the ESA would help to prevent species extinction." As the Department of the Interior has reported to Congress, 270 threatened and endangered species are either stable or improving under the Act's care. These include species like the bald eagle in Idaho, and one of Mr. Plummer's favorite species, the American burying beetle on Block Island in Rhode Island. The Endangered Species Act has achieved this success while balancing the Nation's other needs. My friend Michael Bean is fond of saying that the amazing thing about the Act is not how many conflicts there have been, but how few there are. Between 1979 and 1993, out of more than 150,000 Federal and private projects reviewed for conflict with endangered species, 99.9 percent went forward, either as originally proposed, or modified in some fashion to accommodate the needs of the species and society's other needs. Mr. Chairman, this is a law that works. Nevertheless, it can be improved. It can work better for wildlife and for people. I want to suggest some ways it can do that. First, the Act should do a better job of preventing species from becoming endangered in the first place. We should head off the train wrecks before the trains leave the station. The Act should contain express authority to develop preventive programs for species before they become endangered, and to protect imperiled habitats. Second, the Act should do a better job of recovering species, getting them off the list. That's the goal. We should have recovery plans developed within 18 months. They should contain scientifically-based targets for recovery and delisting. These plans should be developed with input from Federal, State, tribal and local governments, scientists, and the public. They should emphasize actions that will give the most progress toward recovery while also reducing costs. They should provide guidance to private landowners about what actions are likely to result in violations of the Endangered Species Act. And they should be prepared on a multiple species ecosystem basis whenever possible. Third, Mr. Chairman, the Endangered Species Act should provide greater incentives for private landowners. Secretary Babbitt mentioned some of those, estate tax deferral, using existing stewardship programs, are all good ideas. And fourth, it should be easier for Americans to get answers about what their responsibilities are under the Act. Each field office of the Fish and Wildlife Service should have a property owner and community assistance officer whose job is to provide answers, respond to complaints and give assistance to landowners. Mr. Chairman, the Endangered Species Act represents our Nation's commitment to ourselves, our children, and the world, that we are going to leave them a world as rich in plants and other wildlife as the one we enjoy. It's a very important promise, a promise that must be kept. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Mr. Irvin, thank you very much. STATEMENT OF DAVID F. MAZOUR, ASSISTANT GENERAL MAN- Mr. MAZOUR. Thank you, Senator. It's indeed a privilege for me to be here and be able to present some of our thoughts on the Endangered Species Act, and actually to sit on a panel with a couple of authors. It's an opportunity that I thoroughly treasure. I'm here today on behalf of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition. You have my testimony that's been circulated in advance. I have a 5-minute version of that. I've decided not to use that 5-minute version, and rather than talk from that, I'd like to share with you some of the experiences that we're having in Nebraska in the field with regard to the Act itself. Before I do that, though, I'd like to make it abundantly clear that the coalition that I'm representing here today is not interested in gutting the Act. They are truly seeking to find ways to better improve the Act for the protection of species, and make it more people friendly. Quite frankly, the public is losing confidence in the Act and the way it's being implemented. If some corrections aren't made, the Act could actually destroy itself. We need to wrestle with the question of what's going wrong. And my experiences in the last 8 years, as I've worked for the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, is we've found some instances where the Act has actually become an obstacle, in my view, to proper resource management and protection of species. I'd like to cite three examples, and there are more. But the first example that comes to mind is an issue with regard to least terns and piping plovers on islands in the river versus sand pits. In this case, the wildlife biologists have suggested that they wanted to see the tern and plover recovery from islands on the river, and the districts and our biologists had looked at the potential of nesting and fledgling success on islands. We developed programs to really promote and work with the recovery of terns and plovers with the man-made sand pits. We've had much greater success. I think that that needs to be recognized. A second example that I'd like to cite is our efforts in water conservation. We've been encouraged to enter into water conservation programs. As a matter of fact, we've received a half a million dollar grant from Secretary Babbitt to promote some conservation activities, to get some conservation on the land, and just recently, we received word that we received an award for the activities in water conservation. But yet we're finding some of the provisions of our section 7 consultation under the Endangered Species Act is actually limiting our ability to develop some of those conservation measures that are important. The third item that I'd like to make mention is that the three States, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, and the Interior Department are working on a basin-wide solution to take care of endangered species issues in the Platte River in Nebraska. One of the provisions that the States of Wyoming and Nebraska have insisted on is that the States be equal partners as they develop that basin program. Unfortunately, the interpretation of the Act is that that equal partnership is not allowable under this basin-wide program. So, in that case again, it has actually, in my view, presented somewhat of an obstacle to protection of species. I've wrestled with why do these things happen, and why is the Act out of balance, as several of you have mentioned. It seems to me that there's a fundamental problem with the Act the way it exists today and the way it was written. I look at it as a concentration of power without the appropriate checks and balances that really result in some bad decisions being made in the field. It's, I think there are several things that can be done to help put the Act back into balance, and several of them have already been mentioned. I think the peer review, the issue of peer review of the science and a more rigorous testing of the ideas of the wildlife biologists, those kinds of provisions should be incorporated into the Act. I think the greater involvement of State and local governments in conservation plans could be an important process to improve the Act. Finally, I think sunshine, I think there needs to be more sunshine brought into the process so that the people have a chance to live on the land, have a chance to participate in the development of the plans, and make comments on the recommendations of the wildlife biologists. Right now, the plans are prepared, what I see it, as from a black box. And out comes the result, and you live with the results. In conclusion, I'd like to say that as you look at reform to the Act, I would ask that you look at it from a long-term perspective, that in order to pass the test of time, you'll need to provide balance to the Act, not destroy the Act, not destroy the purposes for which it was created, but to find ways that it can work better, do a better job more efficiently with the resources that we have available. That will be quite a challenge. But we'd be happy to help you out in any way we can. Thank you. Senator KEMPTHORNE. Mr. Mazour, thank you very much. Mr. Mazour, you said there have been several suggestions made here, and you yourself made some suggestions in connection with the greater local involvement and sunshine. What do you think about the proposal that we try and involve greater incentives, and indeed there have been suggestions that we modify the inheritance tax laws, so that if somebody has encumbered their land in connection with an endangered species, that they'd get some reduced value of it, or reduced inheritance tax? Another one being the so-called safe harbor in which if you, I don't know whether you were here when Secretary Babbitt was describing it, but safe harbor essentially works that if you've committed yourself to, a portion of your land has an endangered species on it, that you delineate that part of it. And if the endangered species spreads out in the other parts of the land, that's OK. You can carry on as you wish in connection with your activities, regardless of whether the endangered species is there or not. What do you think of those ideas? Mr. MAZOUR. They both appear to me to be very sound principles and good ideas. Senator CHAFEE. The first one involving the inheritance tax, the State valuations, would have some problems probably, just because it would then get into the tax code and where do you stop, getting agricultural side of it, if somebody is following certain farming practices that are beneficial to the long-term value of the land, you give that person a break, one of the problems that would come up. Mr. Irvin, I was interested in what you had to say, you certainly are a cheerleader for the Act. We ought to put you on more panels. I thought the facts you had were good. Matter of fact, it's my intention to plagiarize some of them. I hope you're accurate in all of them. Mr. IRVIN. I'm flattered, Mr. Chairman. Senator KEMPTHORNE. You've never said that to me, Mr. Chair man. [Laughter.] Senator KEMPTHORNE. I do have some things I could incorporate in your speeches. [Laughter.] Senator CHAFEE. Mr. Mazour says something that I'm not sure I agree with. But maybe it's so. He says the public is losing confidence in the way the Act is being implemented. I'm not so sure, obviously I don't come from a rural State, but I come from a State where we have endangered species, we have the plover, for example. I guess you talked about that, Mr. Plummer, did you? You talked about the plover? Mr. PLUMMER. Not the plover specifically, no. Senator CHAFEE. Somebody mentioned that. Whoever. In any event, you mentioned the beetle on Block Island. I, like all Senators, conduct town meetings, listen-ins, whatever one wants to call them, and I must say that the Endangered Species Act is not raised. So it's not, I don't find it in my State now, my State is an eastern, heavily populated State, so it's not the same as, for instance, the chairman's State or others. So I'm not going to gainsay what Mr. Mazour has said. But what do you find, Mr. Easterbrook? Do you find that the public is losing confidence in the way the Act is being implemented? Because we had these statistics that show, I guess you gave them, did you, that very, very rarely do you get to a confrontation, X number, what did you say, 99 point something, I got mixed up between your two testimonies. Mr. IRVIN. Senator, I'd be happy to respond to that. Senator CHAFEE. Go ahead. Mr. IRVIN. First of all, while we hear that there is a lot of discontent with the Act, the polls show us otherwise. Last year, the Times Mirror syndicate did a survey in which 77 percent of Americans said that they felt that the Endangered Species Act regulations were either just about right or not strong enough. Only 16 percent said they went too far. Now, clearly, there is discontent with the Act in certain areas of the country. As I said in my statement, the Act can be improved. It can do a better job of working with landowners. And you heard Secretary Babbitt say that this morning. But there is not a national consensus to undertake the kinds of reforms that are being proposed by some in this Congress, the kinds of reforms that would in fact gut the Endangered Species Act. Senator CHAFEE. Yes, I'm reluctant to label them as reforms. That has a nice tone to it. But the chairman and I were present at a hearing that we held in Roseburg, OR. There we drew 1,200 people. Now, I've been in politics a long time, and I've never drawn 1,200 people to anything. But they were all there, you had to have an axe to get in, because it was pretty much a woodsman crowd. And I can testify there, there was distress in that section of the country, as you mentioned, with the Endangered Species Act. Is my time up, Mr. Chairman? |