Editorial: Conservation road show

Monday, Aug. 14, 2006 | 7:27 a.m.

Bush administration officials are traveling across the country this month to gather comments on the president's "cooperative conservation" plan, a program that benefits industry and one that environmentalists fear could dilute existing laws that protect endangered species and habitat.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and other Bush administration officials sell this program as a cooperative effort among private landowners, industry representatives, conservation groups and government officials to preserve the environment. The plan calls for using federal grants to encourage private landowners to protect endangered species, preserve habitat and do other conservation work that historically has been mandated and done by government.

Bush has said that his plan focuses on states' needs and gleans knowledge from local authorities, conservation groups and residents to reach conservation agreements. What the administration doesn't say is that avenues for that kind of participation and cooperation already exist under current federal laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. But those laws demand that private interests do what's right to protect endangered species and habitat, rather than encouraging them to do it.

Kempthorne, appointed as Interior secretary in March, is hardly someone we'd trust to deliver a strong message on conservation. As a U.S. senator, Kempthorne opposed renewal of the Endangered Species Act. As Idaho's governor, he sued to block a Clinton administration plan to reintroduce grizzly bears to Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains.

Earlier this year, Bush proposed slashing $89 million from the already strapped National Parks Service and proposed cutting grants for existing water and land conservation grant programs by 40 percent in order to boost funding for "cooperative conservation" grants. Cut those other programs enough, and they might as well not exist. Could that also be part of this plan?

Federal officials will visit seven cities this month, selling local communities a bill of goods for a cooperative process they already have - one that does more to protect endangered plant and animal species than the industry-friendly conservation program Bush supports. This administration simply cannot be trusted in the care of our nation's natural environment.