Mar 01, 2007 - 04:19:15 CST
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators, including the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is proposing tax incentives for landowners who take steps to recover endangered species.The approach is a narrower alternative to a comprehensive overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, a priority for Republicans before Democrats took control of Congress.
"In one way or another, this bill has been about five years in creation," said Sen. Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, the lead sponsor of the legislation.
Crapo has the support of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the panel. The senators joined environmental groups and farm groups - many of which have been divided over past endangered species act bills - in announcing the legislation Wednesday.
The bill would offer tax credits to landowners who protect endangered animal habitat and agree to an animal management plan. The maximum tax credit would be $300 million for landowners who set aside 180,000 acres in a perpetual conservation easement.
Crapo said the legislation would cost an estimated $2.7 billion over 10 years.
He said the compromise bill would help alleviate conflict between landowners, environmental groups and the federal government. While environmentalists credit the Endangered Species Act with saving species like the bald eagle, many farm and property rights groups contend its provisions get in the way of legitimate land uses and provoke lawsuits instead of helping plants and animals.
The bill would not amend the Endangered Species Act, but would attempt to provide landowners with incentives for compliance, Crapo said. He said current law is a "more regulatory" approach.
"This provides what ESA does not," he said.
Baucus said the bill gives landowners more control.
"We are enabling people to make their own decisions about what they want to do," he said.
Many environmental groups strongly opposed an attempt to revise the law in the last Congress. A House-passed bill written by then-Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would have stopped the government from designating "critical habitat" where development is limited. But the legislation stalled in the Senate.
The new legislation is endorsed by several advocacy groups, including Environmental Defense, the National Wildlife Federation and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
"For too long now, we've been relying exclusively on regulations that had the unintended consequence of pitting landowners and environmentalists against each other," said Michael Bean, senior attorney for Environmental Defense. "This is an innovative approach that will help us make real progress for our endangered species."
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