STATEMENT OF MIKE CRAPO, CHAIRMAN,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE AND DRINKING WATER
HEARING ON THE SCIENCE OF HABITAT CONSERVATION PLANS
JULY 20 & 21, 1999

Good morning, and welcome to a hearing of the Fisheries, Wildlife and Drinking Water Subcommittee. Today, we begin a series of hearings examining Habitat Conservation Plans.

Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) were authorized in 1982 through amendments to the Endangered Species Act to address problems that effectively precluded landowners from conducting lawful activities on lands where listed species were present.

These plans are win-win solutions for both species and landowners -- habitat needed for the conservation of threatened and endangered species is managed in a more sensitive manner, while providing landowners certainty about carrying out activities on their property.

Nearly 250 of these plans have been negotiated to date and approximately another 200 are presently in progress. Habitat Conservation Plans have been praised by conservationists and private property rights advocates alike. Clearly, they are, and will continue to be, an innovative way to improve species conservation, and an important tool for preserving the rights of private property owners.

But like many innovations, improvements are needed. Groups on both the resource and conservation sides of the debate have raised concerns about the policy and science of HCPs. They have been critical of the protracted and expensive process of negotiating HCPs, and the adequacy of the science used to develop HCPs, among others.

These are valid concerns that must be addressed as more and more land is managed under Habitat Conservation Plans. We must be able to protect species based on reliable scientific information. At the same time, we must be able to protect private property by assuring landowners that the federal government won't reopen negotiations on plans each and every time a new issue arises.

As I mentioned, this is the first in a series of hearings. Today and tomorrow, we will focus on the issue of science: perceived flaws in the science of HCPs, gaps in the data, and how scientists and land managers address the question of scientific uncertainty. Wildlife managers and landowners do not have the luxury of waiting decades for an exhaustive scientific record to be compiled. In fact, this is quite probably an unrealistic objective when it comes to science.

Wildlife and fisheries managers, and landowners are forced to make decisions regularly about how to manage or develop a particular tract of land without perfect knowledge of a species. They do this in an attempt to conserve species, while at the same time deriving an economic benefit from the land. This is the crux of the Subcommittee's hearings on the science of HCPs.

Over the next two days, we will hear from witnesses who have been directly involved the development of Habitat Conservation Plans, and who have conducted studies on many of the plans that are complete and are being implemented.

I believe making Habitat Conservation Plans work better for species and landowners is an extremely important objective for this Subcommittee. I look forward to listening to, and learning from our witnesses over the next two days in an effort to make much-needed improvements to Habitat Conservation Plans.