WASHINGTON – Northwest lawmakers were mostly divided along party lines Thursday as the House approved changes to the nation’s most prominent environmental law, the 1973 Endangered Species Act.
Most Republicans, including Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, said the bill would modernize a law that has long forced landowners to bear unreasonable burdens to protect plants and animals, led to costly lawsuits and failed to help threatened species recover.
Walden, a co-sponsor of the bill, called it a modest change that would “bring tangible and positive results for the environment and the people we represent.”
The bill would result in improved scientific requirements in federal decision-making; better criteria for helping species in need; improved protection of private property rights; and a streamlined process that will be open to the public, Walden said.
But Democrats said the bill would eviscerate a law they credit with preserving species such as the spotted owl, gray whale and bald eagle.
“This bill is like cutting down the tree with the bald eagle’s nest in it when you could have just trimmed the branches,” said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. “It proposes unreasonable solutions to reasonable concerns.”
The GOP-sponsored bill was approved 229-193, with all 10 Democrats in Washington and Oregon opposing it. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., was the only one of four Republicans in the two states to oppose the bill.
Spokeswoman Heather Janik said Reichert was concerned about a provision that would eliminate “critical habitat” protection for plants and animals where development is limited – a step some critics said could lead to the extinction of dozens of threatened species.
“The congressman felt that one of the top concerns in Washington state and in his district is the environment, and when it came to the bill, he had some concerns on critical habitat,” Janik said.
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., waxed philosophical during debate on the House floor.
“What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in?” he asked.
“What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure that their habitat is protected? It is nothing,” Inslee added. “This is not a modernization of the act. This is a euthanization.”
But Republicans said the measure would restore sanity to a law that in 32 years has resulted in the recovery of less than 1 percent of listed species.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said the bill would create a “fundamental shift from confrontation and litigation to cooperation and recovery. For people of the rural West, there could be few more important matters than modernization of the ESA.”
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