PHOENIX -- If you really want to touch a raw nerve with Western governors, just bring up the Endangered Species Act.
Whether it is salmon in Oregon or desert tortoises in Utah or an obscure spine dace in South Dakota, virtually every governor in the West has a story to tell about endangered species and the horrific price tag that comes with trying to save them, about private property forfeited to federal regulators and the loss of jobs to species that few cared about anyway.So guess who was a featured speaker at the Western Governors Association winter meeting last week in Phoenix? Jamie Rappaport Clark, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the regulatory entity that does the most of enforcement of the act.
But it was not necessarily a case of Clark walking into the lion's den.
Perhaps surprisingly, she has found Western governors to be allies in her quest for reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act. In fact, it was the governors, including Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who proposed the recent Endangered Species Act reforms that were supported by the Clinton Administration but failed to pass Congress.
"The Western governors will again actively pursue reauthorization of the act in the next legislative session," predicted James Souby, executive director of the association. "The governors want a law the states can work with to address species problems."
To that end, Clark's message to the governors was one that has been preached, albeit not practiced all that much, in Utah for years. The Department of Natural Resources has for years tried to educate reluctant state lawmakers about the need to invest in wildlife habitat enhancement now so that species do not become endangered down the road. The cost of recovery is many times higher than habitat plans.
"It's the adage, you can pay me now or you can pay me later," said Brad Barber, deputy director of the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. "Only when you pay later, you pay a lot more."
Utah is faced with a litany of endangered species problems, from fish species in the Colorado River that could stop water development projects to tiger beetles at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes that could limit recreation in one of the state's most popular off-road destinations.
There are also problems with fish in the Virgin River, spotted frogs in northern Utah and recovery of the Bonneville cutthroat trout, Utah's state fish. Rare black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced in northeastern Utah, and California condors are now flying over southern Utah.
The Legislature created the Endangered Species Mitigation Fund specifically to address the problem of species habitat, but the fund has only $150,000. Millions must be invested if the state is to avoid the onerous restrictions that come when a species is listed as threatened or endangered.
Clark told the governors the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not want species listed any more than the states do, that such listings "signal another conservation failure." Instead, she encouraged the governors to invest in wildlife habitat before the Endangered Species Act drives the decisions.
"We have to look at the big picture and address the problems with regional solutions," she said, "not one (species) by one by one."
Clark told the governors her office is committed to working with affected communities as partners. And in that regard, she pledged her support for the governors' Enlibra doctrine, which is based on the premise of negotiated settlements of environmental problems rather than litigation and confrontation. In fact, federal regulators do not have the budget to address species problems without local partnerships, she said.
"We don't want lawsuits either," she said. "We do not want the law to drive us to a solution. We want to craft local solutions and get out ahead of the problems."
The problem, Barber said, is persuading lawmakers that it makes sound economic sense to invest in prevention of species problems rather than dealing with the problem later when the costs will be prohibitive and the federal regulations onerous.