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Show Jake Garn More flexibility needed The Act, he said, should be designed to protect the environment "to the best of our ability," focusing on important species such as mountain goats, eagles and mountain lions. "We shouldn't, of course, be unconcerned about furbish louseworts, snail darters and bonytail chubs," he said, "but Nature has thoughtfully provided us with tremendous variety and redundancy at the bottom of the biological scale." reaction to the. Supreme Court's controversial "snail darter" decision, U. S. Senator Jake Garn Thursday Thur-sday said it should pave the way for more flexibility in the administration of the Endangered Species Act. Garn, an outspoken critic of the "restrictiveness" of the five-year-old Act, said he was not surprised by the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling that the Tennessee Valley Authority must abandon plans to complete the Tellico Dam because it threatened the tiny fish. "The decision demonstrates demon-strates that Congress is going to have to be more careful in writing legislation," he said. "I strongly doubt that Congress intended the Endangered Species Act to protect the snail darter and furbish lousewort -- no matter what the cost to society. But I admit the Act can be read that way," he said. The Utah Republican has sponsored an amendment to the Act which would require agencies proposing projects to take any "practical action" ac-tion" to protect endangered species and their critical habitat; permit modification in the critical habitat; and allow the governor of a State to balance the benefits of a project against possible biological damage "in the event that no practical action is available to protect the endangered species." Garn said he hopes the Supreme Court decision will assist in the passage of his and other similar amendments amend-ments by Congress. "I hope that will happen because the alternative is the total repeal of the Act," he said. "And I think that would be very undersirable. "The fact is," he continued, con-tinued, "that society can't tolerate laws applied so restrictively that they would prevent, for example, even a pint of water being taken out of the Colorado River if a relatively undistinguished species is endangered." |