Family Business First

The Family Business First coalition supports substantive changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA is one of the most far reaching environmental laws ever created by Congress. After more than two decades of application, it is apparent that the ESA is a failure. It does not provide adequate protection for listed species and it seeks to preserve species already at the edge of extinction. The ESA does not allow the consideration of economic impacts that are associated with endangered species protection. As a result, the Act has been directly responsible for severe economic dislocation of regional rural economies, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, the ESA has had adverse impacts on the rights of private property owners. Millions of acres of private land throughout the United States have been pulled out of productive use because of restrictions imposed on landowners for the protection of endangered species like the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, goshawk, red cockaded woodpecker and golden cheeked warbler to name just a few. The 104th Congress faces the challenging task of trying to modify an act that is clearly broken.

Our view:

ESA’s Failure

• The ESA does not adequately protect species currently listed. Listings are made when a species may already be at the point of extinction. In fact, there needs to be an acknowledgment in the Act that we may not be able to recover all species. The ESA has generally failed to preserve or recover threatened and endangered species. The ESA’s only success story may be the American Bald Eagle, and its recovery may be more a result of the ban on use the pesticide DDT than any restriction imposed by the ESA. Few species have ever been recovered to the point where they have been delisted.

• The listing process is flawed and caters less to species that truly need protection and more to "charismatic megafauna" like the grizzly bear or the northern spotted owl, whose listing even environmentalists acknowledge, was more political than scientific. Listings should be made on the basis of the best available science. All U.S. Fish and Wildlife (FWS) science used to list species should be subject to careful peer review by experts not connected with the FWS listing process. No habitat should be protected or removed from use until the listing process has been completed. Finally, recovery of a species is too broad a goal and may not be practical in all cases. The Secretary of the Interior should be given authority to determine alternative methods for protection of species beyond “recovery.” A management plan should also be completed before any species is listed as threatened or endangered.

Impact on Private Property

• The Act has adverse effects on the rights of private property owners. As it is currently written, the ESA imposes harsh penalties on landowners who “take” a listed species. Take is defined in the Act as to “harm, harass, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect a threatened or endangered species. Civil and criminal penalties apply to public and private lands, but the Federal government has options beyond those of private citizens for "taking" species. In recent years, the FWS has also interpreted the concept of "harm" to mean habitat modification -- like a timber harvest -- rather than the actual death or injury of an individual of a listed species. This interpretation has enabled the FWS to impose severe land use restrictions on property without compensating landowners for the loss.

• Landowners in Texas for example, saw their property substantially devalue as a result of the addition of the golden cheeked warbler to the ESA lists. This summer the Supreme Court will decide Sweet Home Communities v. Babbitt, which examines the government’s right to interpret the concept of harm as habitat modification. Whatever the outcome, Congress should modify the Act, through tax incentives or other means, so that landowners are rewarded for protecting endangered species, rather than penalized. And, compensation for regulatory takings is of paramount importance to Family Business First.

Economic Impact

• The economic impact of listing a species as endangered is not a consideration in the current ESA. This should be changed. No listing should be completed without a full cost/benefit analysis and economic impact analysis on the affected region. Those parties in any affected region should be allowed an opportunity to express their concerns.

• The failure of the ESA is compounded by the severe economic dislocation it has imposed. There are countless examples of rural communities, small businesses and individual families that have been devastated by the effects of excessive ESA regulations. As a result of the northern spotted owl listing, the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest for example, has experienced a 3 billion board foot net reduction in timber harvests and with the trickle down effect, a total loss of 64,000 jobs.

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