Environment |
The Man Beneath the Brimby Peter Koch |
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Meet Richard Pombo, a California rancher and Congressman whose reputation and physical presence are nearly as big as the white cowboy hat he often likes to wear on the House floor. “I grew up riding horses, driving tractor and feeding the cattle,” said Pombo, in a recent interview on NPR, “it was something I had to do every morning before school and every day after school... what a lot of people don’t realize is that you have an emotional attachment to the land.”
That land is California’s Central Valley, a 400-mile long fertile strip between the Sierra Nevada and the coastal ranges that produces a full quarter of the nation’s food, and also the place where Pombo grew up. Although Pombo (R-Tracy) isn’t new to Congress—in fact, he’s a seven-term member—as a rule, he’s remained below the public radar. Until recently, that is, when a string of anti-environmental legislation came pouring from the House Resources Committee, the committee he chairs. And that’s why everyone should know who Pombo is.
His most recent environmental assault, aimed at stripping the much beloved Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, has thrust him into the national spotlight, uncovering an environmental record that is nothing short of criminal. At the end of September, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Pombo’s endangered species legislation, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), by a narrow margin of 229-193. (Locally, Tom Reynolds voted for it, while Louise Slaughter and Brian Higgins voted against it.) Pombo has claimed that his bill will improve and strengthen the ESA, by more or less ensuring that landowners aren’t screwed out of profiting from their private property. Really, though, Pombo’s legislation would completely undermine 32 years of recovery and steady progress made by the 1,269 species currently listed under ESA.
Pombo knows that neither the enviros or the landowners are happy with the ESA status quo. “[E]verybody [is] saying that there’s problems with the law, and we have to fix it,” he says. Pombo’s idea of “fixing” ESA is to remove provisions that create critical habitat, arguably the most important factor in helping a species to rebound. Also, his bill would force the government to compensate a landowner whenever the presence of an endangered species prevents him from developing a piece of land. For instance, if a developer wants to build an office complex, but the proposed site is critical habitat for an endangered species, then the government—presumably the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS)—must compensate the developer for the full market value of the proposed office complex. Besides the fact that the USFWS is already so short on cash that it can’t afford to list more species, there are loopholes in Pombo’s bill that would allow a landowner to be compensated multiple times for different projects on the same piece of land.
Another TESRA provision says that the federal government only has 180 days to respond to a development proposal on protected land, with a 180-day extension available. After that time, the proposal is considered to be automatically approved, and construction can begin. The 180-day provision, though it sounds reasonable on the surface, is a blink of an eye in the sluggish terms of the federal government.
Opponents to TESRA fear that the compensation provision is so loosely worded that it could create a warped kind of incentive for landowners to make building plans on the most biologically sensitve parts of their property—conceivably so they can cash in on the government rebate. Another provision of TESRA would remove restrictions on pesticides in biologically sensitive areas for at least five years.
Nobody denies that the ESA needs updating, not even environmentalists. Diminishing species are listed too late—when they are nearly extinct—which adds up to much longer recovery times. Also, most species become endangered when their natural habitat is destroyed. Recovering habitat in order to restore a species takes years, sometimes decades. Habitat designation and recovery-plan processes need to be revised to increase the pace of recovery for listed species. Those are the relatively small changes that the environmental community is pushing for. On the other hand, states feel that the old law seriously undermines their powers, and developers and industries (like timber and mining), of course, think that the ESA impedes their progress.
The bill has been passed on to the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, where, fortunately, cooler heads usually prevail. TESRA is much less likely to make it to a vote in that body.
Pombo has been gunning for the ESA since he was elected to Congress in 1993. His efforts always seemed laughable until 2002, when he was promoted to chair of the House Resources Committee, a position that makes him one of the most powerful decision-makers regarding the nation’s environmental policy—as powerful as Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.
Pombo’s intense hatred for the ESA stems from his position in the extreme property rights movement, and goes back to the Pombo family ranch in Tracy, CA. According to his own testimony (which later turned out to be false) before a Senate committee, his family faced financial hardship when critical habitat was established on their ranch for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox (this was, he claimed, why he ran for Congress in the first place). The problem with Pombo’s story was that the kit fox didn’t have any established critical habitat before he came to Congress. He also invented a story about a land dispute with the East Bay Regional Park District, who wanted to build a trail that would cross his family’s land. The Park District exposed Pombo’s lie, pointing out that it was seeking right-of-ways 20 miles away from Pombo’s property.
Pombo says that the Endangered Species Act is ineffective, and that only 16 species of 1,200 have been removed from listing in its 32-year history. While that’s true, he neglects to point out what is perhaps the more important fact—only nine listed species have gone extinct since the ESA was enacted. Studies have shown that over 50 percent of species listed before 2000, and nearly two-thirds listed for 13 years or more, are stabilized or improving. ESA is an effective tool, but species recovery takes time.
Everyone’s a capitalist
A more believable reason for Pombo’s attacks on the ESA is that he simply wants to remove all the red tape that stands between him and a load of money. What Pombo always leaves out of his personal history is that his family has made tens of millions of dollars from the sale of real estate in the Central Valley. The rancher’s been selling off parcels to developers, who are turning them into strip malls, office parks and subdivisions. Pombo always leaves that part out because it just doesn’t jive with his hard-working, cowboy-hat-and-ostrich-skin-boot-wearing, plain-talkin’, Western cowpoke persona (he must have the same PR firm as GW—the down-home, Yale-educated Texas rancher from Massachusetts). California’s wildly varying landscape and waterways are home to 293 endangered species (compared to just 18 here in New York). All those endangered plants and animals amount to a lot of headaches for developers—unless, of course, you get rid of their protections.
Pombo has used his Congressional position for personal gain in other instances, too. Currently, there is one freeway that directly links the East Bay workers to their homes in the Central Valley, traffic-snarled I-205. Rather than simply expanding I-205 (the option preferred by the California DOT), Pombo obtained $21.6 million in federal transportation funds to study the construction of two brand new freeways, one which would pass through his family’s property, and another that passes uncoincidentally close to Pombo family land. Whether the new freeways are built or not, the studies alone will have skyrocketed the value of the Pombos’ land.
TESRA is just the tip of iceberg for Richard Pombo, and is perhaps his most level-headed piece of environmental legislation in a while. For years, he’s been lobbying to re-establish commerical whaling. He was one of the key players behind President Bush’s “Healthy Forests” Initiative and is a strong proponent of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR). He recently drafted a bill that would sell off 15 national parks, and force those remaining to raise key budget money by selling the naming rights to trails and visitors centers. According to Pombo’s staff spokesman, the stunt was intended to influence lawmakers to allow drilling in ANWR. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, he proposed opening thousands of miles of ecologically sensitive coastline to oil and gas drilling.
The original Endangered Species Act was passed at the end of an era—when being a conservative Republican meant having an environmental conscience. It was written by congressional Republicans, was encouraged by President Richard Nixon, and passed the House and Senate unanimously. Nixon’s administration enacted the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, too. Before that, Republican Theodore Roosevelt preserved almost 230 million acres of land by establishing national forests and the National Parks system. Pombo and others like him care about the land, too, but only when it benefits them economically.
Richard Pombo’s story should serve as a cautionary tale. Though his overblown proposals are generally ineffective, you should ask yourself how such a radical, corrupt, myopic politician came to be a decision-maker on the national level. It seems, more and more often, that the inmates are running the asylum. And that’s something to be worried about.
To respond to this story, send e-mail to editorial@artvoice.com.
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