600 Species May Be Lost Amid Paperwork : Environment: Animals, plants facing extinction may get no help for years. GAO report criticizes White House for slow use of Endangered Species Act.

WASHINGTON —  About 600 rare species of animals and plants are facing extinction in the United States but may receive no help for years because of bureaucratic delays, a congressional study said Wednesday.

The sharply critical report by the General Accounting Office portrayed the Bush Administration, which is struggling with the economic impact of environmental protection, as dragging its feet on implementing the 19-year-old Endangered Species Act.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said a two-year study shows that while 650 species have been listed as endangered or threatened under federal law since 1973, another 600 have been accepted by federal agencies as “candidates.” But their official designation probably will be held up in paperwork until the year 2006 or beyond.

Interior Department and Commerce Department agencies involved in this work attribute their “inordinately slow” progress to a lack of resources, the GAO said.

But Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.), who requested the study as chairman of the environment subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, noted that budgets of the agencies involved have risen substantially over the last few years.

The portion of the Fish and Wildlife Service budget for endangered species increased from $18.8 million in fiscal 1988 to $42.3 million in fiscal 1992, while the National Marine Fisheries Service budget rose from $3.7 million to $8.2 million over the same period.

The GAO report suggested that the delays were a result of failure to make implementation of the act a priority.

“At this rate, it is almost certain that we will lose species faster than federal agencies can list them,” Scheuer said.

“Species languish, their numbers decline, their biological and genetic viability declines and the probability of extinction increases with each day of delay,” he said. “Measures to save populations when they reach such low numbers often become heroic and economically expensive.”

Representatives of the federal agencies involved said that they had not read the GAO report and could not comment on its criticism.

The Endangered Species Act, designed to protect rare and threatened species from the effects of commercial development, provides for the protection of geographical areas deemed essential to their conservation. Where a particular species is on the brink of extinction, the act also calls for development of a “recovery plan” that ultimately will allow a species to live in “self-sustaining” populations without federal protection.

Controversy has surrounded the Administration’s recent proposal for less stringent measures to save the northern spotted owl than those mandated by the Endangered Species Act. Officials objected that full protection of the owl could result in the loss of 32,000 timber jobs in the Pacific Northwest.