On Monday, September 19, Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee, introduced a bipartisan legislation, H.R. 3824, the “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 (TESRA)”, to update the flawed Endangered Species Act (ESA). He scheduled a hearing for the bill on Wednesday and plans to move it to the full House as fast as possible. The bill’s supporters are excited about a strong bipartisan support and hope it could be a good sign for passage of the bill this year. Last year, Pombo’s committee passed two bills to rewrite the law, but neither got a vote on the House floor.

TESRA would:

1. Require the federal government to compensate land owners if protecting endangered species forced them to give up the use of their land. (If compensation is not paid, the government could not enforce the act.)
2. Offer property owners grants and incentives to cooperate in protecting species on their land.
3. Eliminate critical habitat designations and instead require the agency to prepare recovery plans that identify certain areas considered to be important to a species' recovery.
4. Require the federal government to give greater weight to peer-reviewed science and empirical data, rather than computer modeling of the populations of endangered species.
5. Direct the secretary of the Interior to write new rules for determining the "best science" in listing endangered or threatened species and
6. Create bigger roles for state and local governments.

Over the past years, farmers and ranchers have suffered economic and social damage generated by the ESA that lacks sound science and consideration of economic impacts to the affected areas. The National Grange has been working with the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition to push Congress to reform the ESA. The Grange considers the 1973 Endangered Species Act as a major impediment to sound environmental and natural resource management. Its policy says: The Grange supports a review of the ESA with the follow­ing guidelines: focus on keystone species (organisms critical to the stable functions of entire habitats and ecosystems), not minor or reduced species; rely on public lands for preservation; encourage voluntary protection by individuals and corpora­tions; curtail taking of private lands for ESA; balance human costs with ecological benefits; compensation for private property owners for loss of usage of their property due to the ESA.

Action Needed:
Please urge your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 3824, the “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 (TESRA).”

Sample letter: (Please feel free to copy and paste this letter in your e-mail )

Capitol switchboard: (202) 225-3121

For contact information of your Representative, click HOUSE.

See also:

The National Grange’s Editorial, “No More Klamath Basins, Please (08/22/04)” in the Washington Times

If you have any questions or comments please contact Legislative Research Analyst Chil-Sook Hwang by e-mail: chwang@nationalgrange.org by fax: 202-347-1091 or by phone: 1-888-4GRANGE, ext 109.

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Thank you for your grassroots participation in the National Grange Legislative program.