[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 155 (Saturday, December 19, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2361-E2362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          OF MICE AND BABBITT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 18, 1998

  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, Nobel laureate John 
Steinbeck

[[Page E2362]]

warned us about the best laid plans of mice and men. On Friday, 
December 4, Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt came to Colorado to 
unveil, with much hurrah, a special ``4(d)'' rule under the Endangered 
Species Act (ESA) designed to protect the Preble's Meadow Jumping 
Mouse.
  Under the rule, ongoing agricultural and landscaping activities can 
go forward, but certain activities like maintaining irrigation ditches 
will need federal review. Special areas, deemed Mouse Protection Areas 
(MPAs) and Potential Mouse Protection Areas (PMPAs), will be determined 
and mapped like a federal shadow over the state of Colorado.
  The special rule, in theory, would allow most existing land use 
practices until more permanent measures, in the form of Habitat 
Conservation Plans (HCPs), are worked out with Washington. Secretary 
Babbitt has touted HCPs as collaborative efforts toward recovering 
endangered species. Presumably, ranchers may go on ranching, farmers 
may continue to feed us, and homeowners won't have to get rid of their 
cats. Wonderful news for everyone!
  ``Not so fast'' say the litigious radical wing of the environmental 
movement. Their disdain for farmers, ranchers, cats and people will 
become the basis for suing whatever collaborative plans are secured by 
stakeholders and interested parties. A few recent legal examples 
foretell of what we can anticipate in Colorado.
  In Massachusetts, environmentalists sued the state for merely 
licensing fishermen who used certain kinds of lobster traps because the 
traps actually worked. In Florida, one radical environmental group sued 
in the name of Loggerhead Turtles because they believed aggressive 
local actions to curb beach-front lighting were not aggressive enough. 
It didn't matter that the county did everything in its power to protect 
sea turtles. Environmentalists sued, and won, but the turtles are no 
better off now than they were before.
  Despite Babbitts' prose about species ``wriggling off the list'', and 
a happy working partnership of ranchers, environmentalists and 
bureaucrats, the ESA will--as it has always done--enrich lawyers rather 
then protect mice.
  How well the ESA has worked depends upon who you ask. On May 6, 1998 
Secretary Babbitt released a statement about several success stories 
under the Act. Boasting his intention to delist or downlist some two 
dozen species, he claimed the species had recovered thanks to this 
over-bearing federal law. To convince us that the Act works, Babbitt 
said species would be ``flying, splashing and leaping off the list.''
  However, an independent review by the National Wilderness Institute 
proved otherwise. Data error, not recovery under the ESA, was 
responsible for the change in status of at least eight of the species. 
The species' status never actually improved.
  Threats to other species were overestimated by government biologists. 
Four species turned out to be imaginary--that is they were not unique 
or separate species as once thought by the agency. Five species, listed 
as ``proof'' the ESA works, have actually gone extinct!
  Twenty-nine of my Congressional colleagues joined me in demanding a 
retraction of this gross misjudgment. Jamie Rappaport Clark, the 
Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, responded she was 
``personally embarrassed by this unfortunate error'' and promised to 
recant the statements.
  There are over 1,138 species listed under the Endangered Species Act. 
None have conclusively recovered due to it's passage.
  To reestablish the ESA as the vanguard against extinction, we must 
reform it by ensuring all decisions are based on sound science, and 
recovery efforts include land owners, state leaders and businesses. 
Absent these simple precepts, even Secretary Babbitt's best laid plans 
for the Preble's mouse are certain to go awry.

                          ____________________