[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 12, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3061-H3063]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BILLION DOLLAR BLACK HOLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me that many in the 
environmental movement believe that we as a society do not spend enough 
money on implementation of the Endangered Species Act. They constantly 
blame the problem with the ESA on lack of funding. While a convenient 
excuse, it is simply is not true.
  When measured by how many species are recovered under its draconian 
rules and regulations, the ESA is a total failure. The rate of recovery 
has been minimal, and some listed species continue to go extinct. 
However, we continue to throw money at the ESA in the hope that somehow 
funding might recover species. This approach will not work.
  Let us look at the numbers and how the ESA forces the Federal 
Government, the State and local governments and countless private 
citizens to waste money on a system that is broken. It is almost 
impossible to figure out how much money is being spent under the 
auspices of endangered species protection, but the figure is nearing a 
billion dollars a year by many estimates.
  In 1998, Congress, concerned about rising ESA costs and seeking 
better information on how we were spending, required the Secretary of 
the Interior to report to Congress how much the Federal Government is 
spending directly on endangered species.

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                              {time}  1815

  Any Federal agency that undertakes activity on behalf of a listed 
species is required to document expenses and create an annual report to 
the Fish and Wildlife Service.
  The Fish and Wildlife Service is then required to compile that 
information into an annual accounting to Congress. The Service stays 
several years behind, but we now have accounting records for the years 
of 1989 through 1995; annual direct expenditures from $43 million in 
1989 to over $330 million in 1995. However, these figures do not tell 
the whole story. It does not get into administrative costs and 
overhead. For example, over 400 units of our National Wildlife Refuge 
System have at least one threatened or endangered species during some 
part of the year. A total of 58 refuges have been established 
specifically to protect threatened and endangered species, and 36 
contain areas defined as critical habitat.
  The cost of acquiring refuges and other public lands for protection 
of endangered species is absolutely staggering. We recently completed 
the acquisition of the Headwaters Forest at a cost of $250 million to 
the Federal taxpayer, and another $130 million to the California 
taxpayer, all to protect spotted owls and marbled murrelets.
  The administration's budget request includes funds for the Archie 
Carr National Wildlife Refuge, which will cost $105 million; the 
Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge which will cost $25 
million; the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge which will 
cost $71 million; the Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge at $23 
million, and the list goes on and on, millions and millions of dollars.
  In addition, every State in the Union has been forced to pay. 
California just paid $38 million. Even more troubling is that most of 
the costs of endangered species protection is passed on to private 
citizens, businesses, local communities and then we get into 
mitigation, which costs millions and millions of dollars. To get 
permission to use private or public land or to allow important local 
projects to continue, the landowner or local government must agree to 
buy and mitigate lands. It is an awesome amount of money.
  In California, they had to plant 5 trees for the beetle, the longhorn 
beetle, at a cost of millions of dollars. In addition, changes in 
projects required by the Fish and Wildlife Service can add millions to 
the project. We have examples of that for a fly that cost $3.5 million 
building this hospital in a different place. That is $441,000 per fly.
  We have an example in my State of Utah where we spend on children in 
Washington County, the weighted pupil unit is $3,554, but for the 
desert tortoise, which is not threatened incidentally, it is only 
threatened in the Mojave, not up in that area, we spend $33,000 per 
tortoise to take care of the tortoise, which has never been threatened 
since I was a kid in that area, but we have still put the money out.
  The administration likes to brag about the 200 habitat conservation 
plans that have been negotiated. Again, almost all of these are in the 
West. These HCPs, as they are called, can be very expensive to prepare 
and biologists have to be brought in and people that cost all kinds of 
money. It is hard to calculate how much money we use.
  Should we be concerned about these costs? Of course we should. We pay 
these costs one way or another, either in Federal taxes, local taxes or 
from mitigation or whatever it may be.
  Now let us talk about the great success stories of which there are 
none. They like to talk about the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. 
Guess what really happened? Biologists took them in, bred them in 
captivity and out of that they were able to return them to the 
environment. Let us face it, Mr. Speaker, the EAS has been a dismal, 
dismal, costly failure. It sounds good but it does not work. We need a 
new approach to this problem that does not drain our American economy 
and truly takes care of endangered species. The way we are doing it 
does not work.
  It is amazing to me that many in the environmental movement seem to 
believe that we as a society don't spend enough money on implementation 
of the Endangered Species Act. They constantly blame the problems with 
the ESA on not enough money.
  While a convenient excuse, it simply is not true. The ESA when 
measured by how many species have recovered under it's draconian rules 
and regulations, is a total failure. Very few species have recovered 
and some have been removed from the list of species because after being 
listed under the ESA, they went extinct.
  However, we continue to throw money at the ESA in the hope that some 
how money might recover species. This approach won't work. Let's look 
at the numbers and at how the ESA forces the federal government, the 
state and local governments and countless private citizens to throw 
money at a system that is irretrievably broken.
  It is almost impossible to figure out how much money is being spent 
under the auspices of endangered species protections, but the figure is 
nearing a billion dollars a year by many estimates.
  In 1988, Congress, concerned about raising ESA costs and seeking 
better information on how much we were spending, required the Secretary 
of the Interior to begin reporting to Congress, how much the federal 
government is spending directly on endangered species. Every federal 
agency that undertakes any activity on behalf of any listed species is 
supposed to keep track of those expenses and make an annual report to 
the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Fish and Wildlife Service was then 
supposed to compile that information into an annual accounting to 
Congress. Now, the Service stays several years behind, but we now have 
accounting records for the years 1989 through 1995. We have gone from 
an annual direct expenditures in 1989 of $43 million to over $330 
million in 1995.
  However, these figures don't really tell the whole story because 
these figures don't include general overhead and administrative 
expenses associated with direct spending on the species itself. Nor do 
these figures tell the story of the amount of land that has been 
acquired for endangered species. For example, over 400 units of our 
National Wildlife Refuge System have at least one threatened or 
endangered species during some part of the year. A total of 58 refuges 
have been established specifically to protect threatened and endangered 
species, and 36 contain areas defined as designated critical habitat. 
Refuges are often the major part of a recovery plan for an individual 
species. In fiscal year 1999 we will spend more than $237 million 
dollars just to operate and maintain our vast wildlife refuge system.
  The costs of acquiring refuges and other public lands for protection 
of endangered species is staggering. We just recently completed the 
acquisition of the Headwaters Forest at a cost of $   to the federal 
taxpayer and another to the California taxpayer, all to protect spotted 
owls and marbled murrelets. The Administration's budget request include 
funds for the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge which will 
ultimately cost over $105 million; the Attwater Prairie Chicken 
National Wildlife Refuge which will cost over $25 million; the Balcones 
Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge which will cost over $71 million; 
the Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge at $23 million; the Lower Rio 
Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex at $135 million; and 
last but certainly not least is the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge 
which is expected to cost over $560 million. And this is just a partial 
list.

  In addition, every state in the union has jumped on the bandwagon and 
each state spends it own state funds to protect various endangered 
species within their own borders. Those range from a high in California 
of $38 million on down.
  But even more troubling is that most of the cost of endangered 
species protection is passed along to private citizens, businesses and 
local communities by threatening lawsuits and prosecution if those 
citizens don't agree to undertake costly mitigation projects. Why is 
mitigation running up costs? Mitigation is the cost of doing business 
with the Fish and Wildlife Service where there are endangered species. 
As one of my colleagues recently said in a hearing, you can get 
anything you want from the Fish and Wildlife Service if you put enough 
money on the table.
  To get permission to use private or local land or to allow important 
local projects to continue, the landowner or local government has to 
agree to either buy mitigation land to be set aside in perpetuity or 
pay into a mitigation fund to buy land. Almost all of this mitigation 
requirement is occurring in the west. It adds millions of dollars to 
many projects. For example, the Resources Committee held hearings on 
why flood control levees weren't being promptly repaired in California. 
We learned that in order to protect the elderberry longhorn beetle, 
local flood control agencies were being required to ``mitigate'' on a 5 
to 1 ratio for the beetle. This meant that they were required to obtain 
land for planting elderberry trees--not just 5 trees for each tree 
removed from levees, but 5 trees for every branch on each elderberry 
tree.
  In addition, changes in projects required by the Fish and Wildlife 
Service can add millions to the cost of the project. In San Bernadino,

[[Page H3063]]

California the presence of eight Delhi Sands Flower Loving Flys added 
over $3.5 million to the cost of building a public hospital--that is 
over $441,243 per fly. The Fish and Wildlife Service made the project 
planners move the hospital after it was already planned for 
construction to save fly ``habitat.''
  Let me give you an example from my own district in Washington County, 
Utah where we have been forced to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan 
for the Desert Tortoise which happens to reside in one of the fastest 
growing areas of the nation. The County, the City of St. George and the 
private landowners have responsibly participated in this process but at 
an incredible cost. For example, within Washington County Utah we spend 
$3,554.00 dollars per student in the public school system and this 
County has a great school system with all of the modern necessities. 
However, when it comes to the desert tortoise we spend a lot more. 
There are approximately 7,000 to 8,000 tortoises within the preserve. 
We are going to spend in excess of $250 million on these tortoises. 
That is over $33,000 per tortoise! Is it not incredible that we are 
spending almost ten times the amount of public funds on a tortoise than 
what we are spending on the education of our children! If the American 
public understood that tortoises, flies and beetles were more important 
to this Administration than our children, there would be even more 
outcry for reform.

  The Administration likes to brag about the over 200 habitat 
conservation plans that they have negotiated. Again, almost all of 
these are in the west. These HCP's as they are called can be very 
expensive to prepare, with private landowners bearing the cost of 
paying for their development and implementation. Some of these cost 
over a million dollars just to propose because the private landowner 
must pay biologist to conduct surveys and develop plans to avoid the 
take of the species on the property.
  How much is the ESA costing? The real cost is incalculable. The cost 
includes lost jobs to loggers in the Pacific Northwest and in the 
southwest where the logging industry and its taxes have been totally 
destroyed. It includes ranchers and farmers in the southwest who are 
having to cut back their herds because of an avalanche of lawsuits 
filed by radical groups with nothing better to do than file lawsuits 
against the people who are the back bones of these communities. It 
includes farmers who don't have enough water for their crops. It 
includes over a billion dollars spent on salmon with nothing to show 
for it according to the General Accounting office.
  Should we be concerned about these costs? You bet we should be 
concerned. We all pay these costs in one way or another and yet all 
this money has resulted in almost no recoveries of endangered species 
because of actions taken under the ESA. The bald eagle and peregrine 
falcon did not recover because of ESA. They recovered because of the 
actions of a few dedicated ornithologists who were able to breed them 
in captivity and return them to the wild after we removed DDT from our 
environment. That was not done because of ESA.
  ESA has been a dismal, costly failure. We need a new approach that 
works, but doesn't drain our American economy and create impoverished 
rural communities throughout the west.

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