Endangered Species Act Is Sound Science, Panel Finds : Environment: Report to Congress says the embattled law is correct in holding that habitat protection is crucial.

Taking aim at one of the most divisive environmental issues to emerge on Capitol Hill, a panel of prominent scientists has called the Endangered Species Act scientifically sound and recommended strong protection of areas inhabited by the hundreds of creatures at risk of extinction in the United States.

The findings of a 16-member panel of the National Academy of Sciences were unveiled Wednesday, as the world’s most powerful and controversial conservation law is under increasing fire from Republican leaders in Congress. Although the new report offers no scientific surprises, it seeks to dispel criticism that the law needs altering because it is based on poor science and goes too far in protecting endangered animals and plants.

“The overall conclusion is that the ESA is based on sound scientific principles,” the panel said in its report.

Chaired by UC Riverside geneticist Michael T. Clegg, the committee was convened in 1992 to help Congress evaluate scientific aspects of the Endangered Species Act to guide reauthorization of the 22-year-old law.

Under a bill introduced this month by Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Washington), the forests, grasslands and other habitats of endangered species could be more easily developed or used to accommodate economic interests. Also, federal officials would be allowed more discretion to decide which species are worth protecting.

In the context of the current political debate, perhaps the most important finding is the scientists’ unequivocal endorsement of habitat protection as vital to the survival of endangered animals and plants.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to oversee the use of public and private lands where endangered species feed and nest. Many critics call this an abuse of authority, and say that the agency should restrict only actions that directly harm or kill endangered animals or plants.

Clegg, in the report’s preface, called protection of natural habitat “absolutely crucial to species survival.”

“For most endangered species in the United States today, the most serious threat is habitat destruction. Because of this, habitat conservation is the best single means to counter extinction,” the panel wrote.

“The Endangered Species Act, in emphasizing habitat, reflects the current scientific understanding of the crucial biological role that habitat plays for species,” the report continues.

Saying that conservation of key habitat often comes too late because of concern over the economic consequences, the panel recommended that federal officials immediately designate “some core amount of essential habitat” whenever a new animal or plant is declared endangered.

The land, dubbed “survival habitat” in the report, “should be identified without reference to economic impact,” and should be focused upon for protection “as an emergency, stopgap” measure until a long-term recovery plan for each species is completed, the scientists said.

“The central message here is you save species by protecting the ecosystem in which they function,” said one member of the committee, Dennis D. Murphy, director of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology. “This report really speaks to the critical importance of habitat protection as the key means of protecting species.”

By advocating strong protection of habitat, the scientists moved in the opposite direction from the groundswell in Congress and countered the apparent sentiments of at least two U.S. Supreme Court justices. The court this summer is expected to render a key ruling that will determine whether an endangered animal’s habitat can continue to be protected under federal law.

In arguments last month, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia questioned how destruction of habitat can be equated with direct harm to a species, such as through hunting. Scalia called it “just weird” to say cutting down trees and plowing land is akin to destroying an animal. The National Academy of Sciences panel, though, firmly called that policy sound science.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Wednesday said the report “provides a scientific checkpoint against which anyone can measure the strengths and weaknesses of various reform proposals.”

“The Endangered Species Act is not perfect,” he said, “but this report tells us that the current law is built on the foundation of sound biological science.”

Despite many obvious conflicts between the scientists’ findings and his bill, Gorton said in a statement Wednesday that the scientific panel agrees with some of the bill’s premises, including that habitat conservation plans take too long and that many of the issues should be social decisions, not scientific matters.

“The real issue here is how we give people a seat at the negotiating table when decisions are made about their futures,” Gorton said. “Critics have refused to acknowledge the devastation the current law has inflicted on communities around the nation.”

The most widely known conflict is over the northern spotted owl, which nests in old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Similar controversies have involved dozens of other species, including the California gnatcatcher, a threatened songbird which inhabits valuable real estate, largely in Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties.

Loggers, farmers and urban developers want Congress to reform the act so that conservation efforts are voluntary for landowners. Also, they oppose the protection of subgroups of rodents, insects and other little-known species, and want listed only ones that are considered economically or biologically valuable.

The research team, however, reports that there is “no scientific reason” to exclude any types of animals or plants because they may not be popular with the public. Subspecies evolve with different characteristics, and the act’s protection of them is “soundly justified by current scientific knowledge and should be retained,” the researchers concluded.

The scientists concluded that the system is not biased toward listing of species, saying it is “more likely for an endangered species to be denied needed protection than for a non-endangered species to be protected unnecessarily.”

Stanford’s Murphy, who has played key roles in spotted owl and gnatcatcher planning efforts, called the Gorton bill “antithetical to good science.” He acknowledged that the Endangered Species Act “hasn’t been functioning well for stakeholders or for the species it is meant to protect,” but said that implementation of the law--not the law itself--is flawed.

“We have to quit beating the statute to death and look at our pattern of implementation,” he said. “I don’t think you need to change the language.”