Stalking the Law

Species act endangered

Nearly extinct and known to live only in the waters of the Little Tennessee River, the 3-in.-long snail darter is exerting an influence far out of proportion to its size. In June the U.S. Supreme Court stopped construction of the $116 million Tellico Dam because it would wipe out the diminutive fish, thereby violating the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Now the snail darter is endangering the very law that protected it.

After four months of desultory debate, Congress last week failed to renew funding for the act, thus idling the 195 Interior Department bureaucrats and field agents who enforce it and leaving the snail darter, American bald eagle, grizzly bear and 700 other troubled creatures with near toothless federal protection. Some parties to the funding fight cited the Tellico Dam incident as cause. Concluded Keith Schreiner, the Interior Department official in charge of enforcing the act: "Congress is scared. They don't want bureaucrats to have this kind of authority."

The snail darter has thus become the symbol of a much larger question: At what price shall the environment be protected? Opponents of refunding want to make the Endangered Species Act less rigid, especially when a species is being protected at the expense of what they consider the larger public good. Accordingly, some members of Congress have submitted legislation that would allow endangered flora and fauna to be wiped out if saving them proved too costly. Says an aide to Robin Beard, a Tennessee Republican leading the House antifunding forces: "The problem now is that the law allows no exceptions. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are."

Pressure for weakening the act is likely to build. A dozen major federal construction projects now on the drawing boards could be stymied under the law as it now stands. (Largest among that dangerous dozen is Maine's proposed $559 million Dickey Lincoln Dam, which environmentalists contend threatens the Furbish lousewort, a weed protected under the law.) In addition, the Interior Department may add 1,000 plants and 100 animals to its endangered species list, a move that could eventually hold up even more construction. Environmentally concerned legislators in the House last week were scrambling to gain support for a compromise funding bill already passed by the Senate. The measure would create a seven-member committee, composed mostly of federal officials, to rule on possible exceptions to the Endangered Species Act and would also allow the $15.7 million budget needed to enforce it for another year.

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