For Some Politicians, Extinction Pays

US -- The UN Environment Program's Global Biodiversity Assessment, the work of some 1,500 eminent scientists, reports that since the year 1600, species extinction began to occur at 50 to 100 times the average estimated normal rate. It is now expected to rise to between 1,000 and 10,000 times the normal rate. Today more than 31,000 plants and animal species face extinction.

Since the time of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence, more than 500 plant and animal species have vanished from North America forever - 250 of them within just the last 15 years.

In the US, human activities have removed at least 95 percent of the old-growth forest, 80 percent of the natural coastlines and more than half of the wetlands in the lower 48 states.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA), the "crown jewel" of environmental law, has saved hundreds of species from oblivion - including the American bald eagle, the California sea otter and the grizzly bear. And the ESA has worked while the US economy has quadrupled in size.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has introduced HR2351, the Endangered Species Recovery Act of 1997, which would strengthen the ESA. Opponents of the ESA have backed a bill by Kempthorne that would eviscerate the Act.

Attempts to undo the ESA have been condemned by leading scientists, environmental organizations and most religious denominations. Evangelical Christians have defended the ESA as a modern-day "Noah's ark."

"The Price of Extinction," a report by the US Public Interest Research Group [PIRG, 218 D. St., SE, Washington, DC 20003, (206) 546-9707, $20] profiles the foes of the ESA: 228 Political Action Committees (PACs) associated with three major industry coalitions. They are the National Endangered Species Reform Coalition, the Endangered Species Coordinating Council and the Grassroots ESA Coalition. These groups are not what their names imply: They are coalitions of mining, petrochemical, timber, real estate and agribusiness interests. Since 1989, these anti- ESA PACs have contributed more than $100 million to their chosen political candidates.

PIRG's investigation found that 125 co-sponsors of anti-ESA legislation received, on average, $120,516 from these PACs between 1989-1997. The 15 Senators who voted for Kempthorne's anti-ESA bill averaged nearly $200,000 in PAC cash.

The top PAC rat in the house was Rep. Don Young (R-AK) who pulled in nearly half a million dollars ($471,053) from mining, real estate, oil and other special interests. The Senate's top PAC man was Larry Craig (R- ID) who accumulated $525,659 in anti-ESA donations from January 1989 to December of last year.