Out on maneuvers: must military training sacrifice endangered-species protection?

Congressional ESA supporters found ways to fight back, however. West Virginia's Nick Rahall, the ranking Democrat on Hansen's Resources Committee, issued a press release. The secretive maneuvering, said Rahall, is "not only unpatriotic, it is irresponsible.... Democrats have clearly and unfailingly supported the President in the war on terrorism, but we will not stand idly by while the administration uses this fight to degrade and destroy America's precious fish and wildlife heritage."

When the defense bill went to the Senate, Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords and others immediately went public. Jeffords held open hearings where military personnel were required to testify.

Also testifying was Jamie Rappaport Clark, the head of the USFWS under the Clinton administration, and now a vice president of NWF. Clark told the senators and press that the administration's proposed exemptions would create "an unwarranted free pass from complying with the nation's environmental laws."

Clark testified that the endangered-species laws were far from rigid, requiring only "negotiation" between fish and wildlife biologists and the military. If these negotiations were to break down, she continued, the law allows the military to apply for a site-specific exemption that would allow training to continue. The surprised senators asked if the military had ever applied for such a limited-scale exemption. Clark replied that they had not.

Following these public hearings, the Senate approved a version of the defense appropriations bill that did not include any military exemptions. From there, the bill went into conference committee--a committee made up of members of both congressional houses. Conference committees work at creating a compromise bill that both the Senate and the House of Representatives can vote on and approve. While the bill was in conference committee, wildlife advocates succeeded in eliminating the endangered-species exemption. But language that exempted the military from any obligation to protect migratory birds during training exercises--unless the migratory birds are also endangered or threatened--stayed in.

"This is something that we can live with," said an exhausted Kostyack, "although we're not happy about it. It could have been much worse." Kostyack and the NWF are widely credited with having led the fight to oppose the full-scale exemption attempt.

Clark summed up the battle by voicing frustration with the backdoor attempts at political maneuvering. The ESA does need revision, she said. But the way to do that, she continued, is through public debate and open voting rather than through an attempt to sneak something through using special rules promulgated in secret in the House of Representatives.

"The future of the Endangered Species Act is a $64 million question. But even with all the debate and angst and frustration with the law, it is absolutely clear that the American public cares deeply about our natural heritage," she said.

Environmentalists warn, however, that the issue could very easily be reintroduced in 2003. The altered balance of power in the Senate means that Republicans will head committees in that body, as they already do in the House of Representatives. It may be easier to push these exemptions through the next time.