Yesterday I talked about the shady connections between Rep. Pombo and several groups that are not exactly on any endangered species Christmas Card list, including Red Lobster restaurants. A commenter at AlterNet, where the story was picked up, said that it was like talking about one car in a traffic jam. That isn't exactly true. While there are many more Republican vehicles in the corruption jam, Rep. Pombo is singularly placed to not only harm the future of America but also to give huge payouts to special interest groups like developers and the fur trade while doing so. Let me explain.
Richard Pombo is behind a proposed amendment to the Endangered Species Act which will gut that act of much of its ability to force private landowners' hands in favor of wildlife with no votes. His amendment was passed by the House 229-193 and now passes to the Senate.
Criticism of the ESA centers around the bald figures that:
since the act was adopted, more than 1,300 species have been listed as endangered or threatened, and only seven of those have been removed from the list because of recovery. Another 20 or so were taken off because they became extinct or it was determined that they had been improperly listed due to data errors.
Obviously, say critics, only seven "saved" species is not enough to justify the huge cost of the Act (about $3.5 billion a year) and the incalculable effect of costs imposed on private citizens, which could be ten times that amount. However, what they fail to realise is the number of extinctions would have been far higher, with no "saved" species at all, without the ESA. For a surety, the bald eagle would not now be found outside zoos.
Pombo is up front about his amendment, called The Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), saying "the act “has been a failure at recovering species — we have to put the focus on recovery and protection of private property owners". In order to accomplish this TESRA requires the Secretary of the Interior to compensate qualified property owners for lost value for the portion of their land affected by the Endangered Species Act. The new bill would therefore pay landowners and developers to protect endangered species found on their property. It's an expensive proposition and, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, would double the cost of conserving fish and wildlife to $2.7 billion over the next five years. That would almost certainly mean, in today's budget-conscious climate, less money for actual conservation.
The head of Wisconsin's endangered species programs says proposed changes to the federal Endangered Species Act could do considerable damage to state and national efforts to protect rare plants and animals.
Signe Holtz, director of the Bureau of Endangered Resources for the state Department of Natural Resources, says a rewrite of the law recently passed by the House of Representatives would make it more difficult to save threatened and endangered wildlife. She says the proposed changes would divert money from recovery efforts to reimburse private landowners and developers, and eliminate protection of habitats that are crucial to saving many species.
In other words, the "Pay up or the woodpecker gets it" approach."
The new bill would also end one of the most important safeguards for endangered wildlife. Among the most controversial parts of the existing law are those that call for setting aside "critical habitat" for an endangered species and restricting changes a private landowner can make on land with such a designation.
Pombo's bill, rather than change that part of the law, simply removed it.
The bill is backed by the Realtors Association and of course, Red Lobster and its friends in the whaling and trapping industries, not surprisingly -
"Not only does this bill gut the Endangered Species Act, but it creates a government giveaway program to greedy developers," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the Defenders of Wildlife
Republican Senator Mike Crapo and Democrat Blanche Lincoln are also trying to put forward an alternative bill. An competing bill to Pombo's presented by House Democrats, which included incentives for landowners who protect species and provisions that made it easier for states to take the lead on species protection, narrowly lost, 216-206. Those two issues, along with increased emphasis on recovering species instead of just listing them, are at the center of reform efforts and expected to be part of Crapo's bill. However, it has much less chance of passing than the bill put forward by the Congressman for Red Lobster because he and Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Sen. James Inhofe - two long-time critics of the act - are in the key positions for controlling what legislation will move.
So you see, the good Congressman isn't so much one of the cars in the jam as one of the key car-wrecks at the head of the queue. His actions are almost always set with the pattern of Republican corruption we have become so familiar with, as noted by YubaNet today. He has acted as the spokesperson in Congress for Chevron in its bid against China for Unocal, taken money from Alaskan donors just before he continued to push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
In an event called "Pombo Palooza," Abramoff offered $5,000 seats at last year's all-star baseball game to tribes that want power plants on their lands without any environmental oversight. Later the same week Pombo demanded that the House Senate Conference on the 2005 Energy Bill allow power plants without any environmental oversight on tribal lands.
And of course he has his connections to Jack Abramoff, who used to be his biggest contributor. Pombo is still milking his Abramoff connections too:
"The Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan plans to spend more than $300,000 on political donations in the 2006 fiscal year, according to the Sept. 27 memo, a sum somewhat less than in the tribe's years with Abramoff - in which it made several large donations to questionable nonprofits - but still sufficient to wield substantial political influence. Those receiving the largest donations on the list are House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and Reps. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), with $7,000 contributions." noted Josephine Hearn, a writer for The Hill http://www.thehill.com, a Congressional newspaper.
Its no wonder his Democratic challenger, Jerry McNerney, is calling for an investigation:
"It is time for a congressional investigation of House Resource Committee Chairman Pombo's activities. They cannot be swept under the carpet and overlooked by his cronies on the Ethics Committee anymore."
McNerney continued, "When taken as a whole, the record is a picture of persistent corruption. The latest story is that he took two expensive trips paid for by anti-environmental groups with legislation before his committee." McNerney connects the dots: "The Congressman uses his chairmanship to help other Congressmen garner donations from those who want influence with the Resources Committee. That is why Tom DeLay appointed him chairman over more senior Republicans; DeLay knew Pombo was not only corrupt but that he would help DeLay corrupt others.
I say again, a key car in the wreckage at the head of the queue.
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