[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 101 (Thursday, July 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             REAUTHORIZATION OF THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I join Senator Shelby today in calling on 
the Clinton administration and this Congress to move promptly to enact 
a significant reform of the Endangered Species Act. The act must be 
changed to require better science in listing decisions, greater 
protection for private property rights, and more balance between 
species protection and human impacts.
  To many of my colleagues, the reauthorization of this act may seem to 
be just another policy debate--one that we can tackle whenever space 
opens up on the Senate calendar. But for many families and communities 
in the State of Washington and across the Nation, every day that goes 
by without a reform of the act means more jobs lost, more mills and 
factories closed, and more demands on social service agencies already 
under extreme stress.
  We simply cannot afford to wait much longer, Mr. President.
  Regrettably, the current administration does not share this sense of 
urgency. President Clinton and Secretary Babbitt have said that the act 
is flexible enough to provide for the needs of both people and other 
species. They have suggested that the ESA only needs minor changes.
  But the administration's own experience with the ESA contradicts this 
point of view.
  President Clinton came to the Pacific Northwest during his campaign, 
promising balance in the application of the ESA to the management of 
timber harvest on Federal lands. He promised to reconcile the needs of 
the ecosystem with the needs of the humans whose lives and communities 
depend on the ecosystem.

  The plan he delivered last year is in no way balanced. It does not 
take into consideration the human element. The plan provides for 
virtually no new timber sales or harvesting from Federal lands this 
year or next. It will be years before the minimal and inadequate 
harvest levels included in the plan are reached.
  I should like to believe that President Clinton was sincere when he 
said he wanted balance. But no amount of sincerity or goodwill can 
change the fact that the ESA is an expansive, loosely worded statute 
that preservationist groups have used to bring any number of beneficial 
activities to a grinding halt.
  Mr. President, perhaps the administration's experience with the 
northern spotted owl has been instructive. Secretary Babbitt and 
Secretary Brown recently proposed an ESA initiative designed to improve 
the quality of science used in listing decisions, and to provide 
greater balance in ESA-related processes. I am gratified to see the 
administrations adopting policies that I have advocated for a long 
time.
  But even with the best of intentions, I do no think that the 
President can bring true balance to the ESA process under the existing 
law. The act is too broad, and the stakes simply too high, to risk on 
the vagaries of an administrative initiative.
  The act itself needs major reform. If we do not act soon, there will 
be more disasters like the one that has befallen our timber 
communities. In fact, there already are.
  The Northwest is already embroiled in a highly complex debate over 
how to save threatened and endangered runs of Pacific salmon. While the 
vast majority of the people in the region badly want to save those 
salmon runs, some of the recovery measures that have been proposed are 
exorbitantly expensive, and would devastate many communities that 
depend upon the Columbia River system.
  We have tried within the region to develop a salmon recovery plan 
that will satisfy the requirements of the ESA without costing hundreds 
or thousands of jobs. We may yet be successful.
  But throughout this planning process, the bar that any recovery plan 
must clear has repeatedly been raised. We dramatically changed 
operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System at a cost measured 
in hundreds of millions of dollars, but a Federal judge said this 
wasn't enough to meet the requirements of the act. River managers then 
ordered a costly and controversial spill of water over the Columbia 
River dams--a spill that many scientists said was likely to kill more 
fish than it saved. The judge was not impressed.
  It is anybody's guess how the courts will rule when the National 
Marine Fisheries Service issues its final salmon recovery plan. But 
that is precisely the point--we should not have to guess. There should 
be some sanity, some predictability, some balance in the ESA process.
  Mr. President, we cannot wait any longer. We must have reform. We 
cannot simply go on funding ESA compliance activities in appropriations 
bills while ignoring the problems at hand. With many of my colleagues 
from impacted States, I am losing my patience.
  I urge the administration and the leadership to move forward with 
reauthorization of the ESA--an ESA that treats human values as of at 
least equal importance as it does species values.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas [Mrs. Hutchison] is 
recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in a period of morning business.

                          ____________________