Species argument.

• Author: Taylor, Jeff A.

LAST JULY, SEVERAL farmers in the San Joaquin Valley received disturbing letters from the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation. The letters informed them that the bureau intended to look for endangered species on their land and asked permission for inspectors to enter the property. Denying permission wasn't really an option, however. If the landowners refused to participate voluntarily, the letter warned, "uncultivated parcels will likely be labeled as habitat if absence of species cannot be confirmed by inspection."

The letter set off a panic, says Carol Richardson, an attorney for the California Farm Bureau. Farmers had reason to fear even the suggestion that their land might be designated endangered-species habitat--with or without an inspection. Declaring land habitat imposes strict use controls. When, for example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had designated a habitat-study zone in the area, Richardson says, one family lost $60,000 worth of production a year. The "arbitrary, very large" zone is off limits to crops, which means the family can't replant in the area.

Other penalties are more subtle but no less devastating. "We have had banks refuse to make loans to buy properties because of fear they won't be able to plant," Richardson says. If Interior agencies continue the property-owner-as-the-enemy approach, she says, "we'll fight it to the ditches here."

That last-ditch attitude recently won a small victory that may presage more important ones later this year. As environmentalists seek to extend government control of private land in the name of habitat protection, they may have overreached. Landowners are organizing, and they are winning unlikely allies.

The San Joaquin Valley farmers, for instance, won the support of Rep. Richard Lehman (D-Calif.), a regular backer of environmental causes. He joined 174 other members of Congress in voting against funding for the National Biological Survey, a new agency that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has called his "top priority." Lehman worries that the NBS will perpetuate, if not worsen, the confrontational stance Interior has taken toward farmers. Threatening habitat designation to win inspection rights "is no way to foster positive relations between the federal government and private landowners," he observes.

The idea of the NBS is straightforward enough, Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), one of the agency's chief congressional sponsors, says the NBS has "a simple, yet awesome...