04/26/05 E.S.A. reform needed, Part one

Tom Sansonetti recently returned to private life. He is back in his home state of Wyoming working for a private law firm. But for about three and a half years concluding the first of week of April, Sansonetti's career was in the public sector as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division. That meant handling trial work, litigation, and some appellate work in environmental and natural resource based cases for eight of the sixteen Cabinet level offices. SANSONETTI: My most steady clients if you will are the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and we do about a third of the work at the Pentagon. So it's a great shop that handles every thing from water issues, to Indian issues, oil and gas leasing, minerals, Endangered Species Act, and things like that. So at one time the top federal environmental attorney in the land, Sansonetti has some credibility of being an insider when it comes to the subject of the Endangered Species Act and whether or not it needs reform. And as he left office, he was not afraid to tell various media outlets what he though. E.S.A. is a fairly inoperable entity in its current state. SANSONETTI: The Act itself was due for reauthorization by Congress in 1993. That's twelve years ago. But it never has been reenacted. That's tells you that there is something wrong and something controversial with the Act. And in my opinion, the existing program is performing rather poorly. The why's according to Sansonetti comes down to how E.S.A. decisions are dictated. In his opinion, It is not the federal government making those decisions, it is the federal courts. And he says usually those decisions are ordered without regard to the government's ability to determine or enforce E.S.A. listings. SANSONETTI: There are simply not enough resources both monetary and in regards with personnel to do the job that the act requires, and what courts are saying the federal government needs to do under the provisions of the act. Sansonetti shares some insight into the problems E.S.A. related court actions have created, and why it will be Congress who will have to fix the problem, in future programs.