Landowners Denounce Species Act On The Other Side, Hearing Blasted For Being One-Sided

The Endangered Species Act was roundly criticized Wednesday by property owners who said the law doesn’t take the cost of protecting animals and plants into account.

But the congressional hearing was itself criticized for providing a one-sided view of the controversial law.

House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, described the panel’s hearing as a way to examine how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and courts “have abused and harmed our wildlife-protection efforts by abusing our citizens.”

The federal law forces property owners “to turn their private land into federally ordered wildlife preserves,” he said in opening remarks.

But Fish and Wildlife Service officials were not invited to testify. An attorney for Defenders of Wildlife said the unbalanced witness list produced a skewed hearing.

“It was very one-sided, of course, and I don’t think the majority party invited anyone with success stories about the act,” said Heather Weiner, legislative counsel for the conservation organization.

Sherry Colyer, head of the Bruneau Valley Coalition in Idaho, told the committee the law was threatening about 60 family-owned farms and ranches in southwest Idaho.

The Farmer’s Home Administration couldn’t renew loans to farmers in 1994 after the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Bruneau Hot Springs snail as endangered.

Republicans were able to choose all witnesses for the hearing because Democrats refused to fill the witness slots they were offered.

One Democratic aide said they did not fill slots because witnesses favorable to the law at last spring’s hearings complained of Republican bullying.

“We hear all the time from the agencies because they’re here in D.C.,” said Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, a committee member. “It’s hard to hear from property owners unless we bring them in from around the country.”

Young and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., are sponsoring an overhaul of the law that would compensate landowners if federal efforts to protect an endangered species reduces the value of their property by 20 percent or more.

Reps. George Nethercutt and Doc Hastings, both R-Wash., are co-sponsors of the bill, which passed through the Resources Committee last fall but has not yet reached the House floor.

, DataTimes