Endangered Species Act

* Re “Endangered Species Act Is Sound Science, Panel Finds,” May 25:

The National Academy of Sciences’ conclusion that the Endangered Species Act is scientifically sound is yet another important voice in the call to reject a massive effort by Congress to gut the Endangered Species Act completely.

The Senate will soon consider a bill Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) sponsored that would disable the ESA. The interests of people, as well as wildlife and the habitats they live in, would be seriously injured were a bill as extreme as the Gorton bill to pass. How shortsighted it is that the law that has helped to save the bald eagle, the gray whale and the alligator is now faced with extinction itself.

Gorton admits that his bill was drafted by lobbyists for the logging, mining and utility interests that want the ESA repealed. That by itself ought to make lawmakers in Washington reject it as no way to conduct the public’s business.

The Gorton bill would reverse the entire purpose of the ESA since President Nixon signed it into law 22 years ago. Rather than the recovery of endangered species, this bill would give the secretary of the interior the option of planning for the extinction of species by failing to protect their habitat.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Assns., a group of commercial fishermen, says that the Gorton bill would mean the end of the Pacific Coast salmon fishing industry. This sort of extremism doesn’t serve the public. The ESA needs strengthening, not gutting.

JON GOLINGER

Los Angeles Campaign Director

California Public Interest

Research Group

* Your May 25 Column One headline says “Hiking the Price of Saving Nature.” That’s not the issue. Whether the price of housing endangered species is paid by random property owners or by the government, the price ought to be roughly the same. The present contest should be reported in terms of who should pay it. Like space, human-genome mapping and other major scientific projects, the beneficiary is the nation as a whole--even mankind. We should not be drafting private property owners to carry on this project at their cost and against their will.

As long as the people who set the housing standards for endangered species know that somebody else pays, then price will not be a factor and priorities will not be set. But price and priorities are important. As a nation, we can’t afford to save everything. The present approach is at best expensive and ineffective. The project needs a budget, priority choices, ongoing study of effective approaches and diverse experiments on how to best reach the objectives.

This project also needs to be distinguished from our pollution emission problems, where limitations are needed for the protection of private property itself and preventive action should clearly be the responsibility of every property owner.

ROBERT R. CHAMBERS

Studio City

* In regard to “Gingrich Says Not All Species Need Be Saved From Extinction,” May 26:

This man is truly scary. According to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, education doesn’t matter, music doesn’t matter, children don’t matter, people starving in the streets don’t matter and now the startling rapidity of extinction of animal species doesn’t matter. I wonder what does matter? I guess to Gingrich what matters is building, frosting over the planet with asphalt and cement, making lots of really dangerous weapons and making money.

PETER DAVISON

Santa Monica