"GOP plan for wildlife law under fire" Reno Gazette-Journal, Sunday, April 26, 1998

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 1998

GOP plan for wildlife law under fire

States' Endangered Species extremely short to do a lot of things. That debate will take a couple of weeks."
     Babbitt agreed with Reid.
     "There is no point in passing a new law if we are not given the resources to put it into effect," he said at last week's stop in Nevada to push restoration of thethreatened Lahontan cutthroat trout.
     The Kempthorne-Chafee bill, backed by a tenuous alliance of moderate Republicans and a few keyDemocrats, has come

Endangered Species Act:
Proposal pays for enforcement with public land sales.

By Scott Sonner
ASSOCIATED PRESS

     An effort to reform the Endangered Species Act is under attack because of a Republican proposal to pay for enforcement of the law by selling federal lands.
     Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said he hopes the 1973 law can be reauthorized, but the administration opposes the funding plan. "My hope is the leadership Senator Babbitt in the Senate will come to grips with that issue and we can get it worked out," Babbitt said. "It gets harder in election years, there's no question about that."
     The issue is political and does not jeopardize existing law because it does not expire, officials said."Because Congress keeps authorizing money for us to spend, we keep going enforcing the law," said U. S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Donna Withers of Reno. "The level of funding is the question about what the future holds, so it would be nice to resolve this."
   Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a leading defender of the act who is up for re-election, said

the chances of the reforms passing this year are fading. "It won't (pass) if they don't satisfy me." said Reid, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee senior member.
Reid and Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the committee, have provided key support in the past to the proposal offered by Republican Sens. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho and John Chafee of Rhode Island.
But they object tolanguage that could result in the use of revenue from the sale of Bureau of Land Management properties to fund enforcement, listings of species and various conservation incentives.
Senator Reid

     "I told them if that happens, I'm checking out," Reid said.
    A spokesman for Kempthorne challenged Reid to find a way to pay for the measure.
     "The only question I would ask is,'What does he suggest to fund the bill?' " Mark Snider asked. "The Democrats, I must say, did not come up with a source of funding."
     Reid said enforcement of the species act will cost $375 million over five years; he said the government makes just $2.5 million a year from the sale of federal land. If the funding dispute is resolved, he estimates a 50-50 chance of the Senate passing the bill.
     "Time is becoming

under fire from both the right and left.
     Private property rights groups said it gives away too much to environmentalists.
     "This proposal would set a dangerous precedentregarding the management of our federal public lands and the amount and quality of public land available to future generations of Americans," Debbie Sease, the Sierra Club's legislative director, said earlier this month.
     Kempthorne, chairman of the Senate Environment and public Works subcommittee with jurisdiction over the act, is continuing to work with the administration, Reid and others to try to work out a compromise. The funding hurdle could scuttle the bill again this year, but Kempthorne isn't ready to throw in the towel, Snider said.
     "Sen. Kempthorne is moving forward and working to get it scheduled on the Senate floor," he said. "At this point everybody is still returning phone calls and seems to be working in good faith."
     Babbitt also sounded hopeful.
     "We made a really good start," he said. "We've got a pretty good consensus in the Senate. If it is not this year, we'll have to go at it again next year and work at it until we get it. We've proven the law can work. Sooner or later we'll get it."