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For Immediate Release
Thursday, May 17, 2004
 

Administration Responds to Pombo's Request on Extension for California Tiger Salamander Listing

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Interior Assistant Secretary Craig Manson responded favorably to a request from House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA), petitioning the court for a six month extension in the proposal to list California's tiger salamander as threatened.

"The data in this case is incomplete at best, as the judge himself has asserted," said Pombo. "I applaud Assistant Secretary Manson's decision to hold the final rule until a thorough review of the science can be conducted."

As a result of litigation brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to issue a rule related to listing the Central California tiger salamander as a "threatened" species under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). In a letter to Judge Manson, the Chairman requested that the Service petition the court for an extension as provided by the ESA. In his decision, the judge stated that, given the uncertainties in the data "the agency would be doing the wrong thing" if it did not "take additional time."

"Given the fact that data error is the reason for most of the delistings under the ESA, it is critical that we focus more on science in the listing process," Pombo continued. "As my committee begins to consider ways to modernize the Act legislatively, support for basing decisions on peer reviewed science must continue. Such decisions will help focus the full force of the law on species recovery, which is where the law intended it be."

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, only twelve of the Act's roughly 1300 protected species have recovered in its thirty-year history. Unintended consequences and a misguided focus on "listing" species have rendered the ESA an unsustainable, broken law that checks species in, but never checks them out.

Several other members of the California delegation, including Reps. George Miller (D-7th), Devin Nunes (R-1st), George Radanovich (R-19th), Ellen Tauscher(D-10th) and Doug Ose (R-3rd), also support the six month extension.

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For more information read the Chairman Pombo's ESA Paper

 

 

 


 

 


 

 

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