WASHINGTON – A rancher from the Eastern Oregon community of Unity has pleaded with members of Congress to loosen restrictions of the Endangered Species Act.

John Hays said that in 2000 the U.S. Forest Service told him they suspected Canadian lynx had moved onto publicly-owned land he uses to graze cattle.

No one ever saw the animal there, Hays said, but the Forest Service withheld his grazing permit on more than 80,000 acres of federal land newly designated as lynx habitat.

The wildcat is one of 1,211 species of plants and animals protected by the 30-year-old act.

All of the red tape and delay Hays said he endured before finally being issued a permit stemmed from ”onerous restrictions” of the Endangered Species Act, he said.

”My livelihood is dependent on the timely and continual issuance of the grazing permit,” Hays said. ”Federal employees that delay the issuance of my permit still receive their federal paycheck, but I don’t.”

Hays testified on Thursday before the House Small Business Subcommittee on behalf of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council. The council represents individuals who hold leases and permits to graze livestock on federal lands. Even before it became law in 1973, environmentalists and others have clashed over just how restrictive the law should be.

Congress designed the law to keep nearly-extinct species from losing their habitats to development, pollution and other uses. The law protects animals and plants on both federally-owned and private land, and gives the government authority to restrict uses of private land when endangered species are found there.

There are several bills in the House and Senate aimed at retooling the act, including one sponsored by Rep. Greg Walden, R.-Ore. Walden’s bill, still under consideration in the House Resources Committee, would raise the standard of proof for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to declare a species endangered. Specifically, it calls for a greater level of scientific peer review than is currently required.

Walden’s effort stems from the April 2001 decision by the federal government to shut off irrigation water to nearly 1,200 farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin to protect several species of endangered fish.

A panel of the National Academy of Sciences later investigated and determined that the decision had ”no sound scientific basis,” according to Walden’s staff.

”There was no sound scientific basis for destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers and ranchers in the basin or for disrupting the local economy and community, which pushed many Oregonians into bankruptcy,” Walden said in a statement. ”The crisis in the Klamath Basin is proof of the toll levied on peoples’ lives when decisions are made on the basis of questionable science.”

During a visit to Bend on Saturday, the congressman said that more independent scientific opinion should be part of the process in determining the boundaries of the Endangered Species Act.

Currently, the use of independent scientists is voluntary, he said. ”There is no requirement for peer review.”

More weight should be given to on-site data rather than relying on material derived from computer models to determine which species should be included on the list, he said.

Rep. Sam Graves, R.-Mo., chairman of the House Small Business Subcommittee, said last week the Endangered Species Act ”holds farmers, landowners, and small businesses hostage to the concern of animals and plants.”

Graves and Rep. Bill Shuster, R.-Pa., said they wanted to slim down the list of endangered species and make it easier for private landowners like Hays to comment on the rules it imposes.

The law has also taken licks from Oregon’s timber industry. Regulations from the act contributed to a 90 percent drop in Oregon’s timber harvest during the 1990s, said Chuck Burley, a timber specialist with the American Forest Resource Council.

While the timber industry and farmers and ranchers contend the state Fish and Wildlife Department goes too far in the name of endangered species, environmental groups assert that the government often doesn’t go far enough. The groups occasionally sue the government to push for more protection.

The Oregon Natural Resources Council and two other groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service in April after the agency passed over the Klamath River’s green sturgeon for endangered status.

”Nobody likes to file a lawsuit,” said Jay Ward, conservation director for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, in an interview Friday. But sometimes, he said, ”they are the last resort to getting the agencies to follow the law.”

The organization filed a lawsuit this summer to halt timber sales in the Deschutes, Ochoco and Umatilla National Forests, protesting that sales threaten habitats of the Canadian lynx – the animal that Hays argued probably didn’t exist in Oregon.

The agency on the receiving end of many Endangered Species Act-related lawsuits, meanwhile, is crying foul.

Craig Manson, the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife in the Department of the Interior, said last week that costs of countering lawsuits against the agency are bankrupting its $8 million fund for keeping the list of endangered species up-to-date.

”The cycle of litigation appears endless, is very expensive, and in the final analysis provides little additional protection to listed species,” Manson said.

Mike Cronin of The Bulletin contributed to this report.

James Fisher can be reached at 202-661-0151 or at fisherjam@mac.com.