Issue Pulse: Bush Administration To Change Endangered Species Rules

The Bush Administration has proposed new rules that allow federal agencies to assess on their own threats to endangered species, side-stepping scientific review of environmental impacts for regulatory decisions. With the new rules, decisions will not require consultation with other federal agencies, and environmental concerns will be secondary to the independent concerns of the agencies. The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, requires that federal agencies consult with independent wildlife specialists, but experts suggest that the administration seeks to undermine the authority of the ESA by preventing scientists from using it to justify reduced carbon emissions. These new rules, set to go into effect immediately, directly contradict that law which has helped save countless endangered species from extinction.

Here’s what some experts have been saying in the mainstream media and blogosphere over the past few days about the proposed rule change:

“This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests…What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act.”
— Eric Glitzenstein, attorney representing environmental groups in a lawsuit over wildfire prevention regulations, August 11, 2008

“Informally known as ’self-consultation,’ this policy is designed to vitiate the checks-and-balances that have made the Endangered Species Act so successful… The insidiousness of self-consultation is especially plain once you consider that many federal agencies are deeply committed to either certain kinds of projects or are entirely sympathetic to particular industries.”
— Andrew Wetzler, director of the Endangered Species Project, Chicago, Natural Resource Defense Council, August 11, 2008

“This proposed regulation is another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door… If this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the gray whale.”
— Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-CA), August 12, 2008

“It’s ridiculous to admit that something is endangered because of climate change, and then say the [ESA] doesn’t apply to climate change.”
— Noah Greenwald, science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, August 12, 2008

“[The new regulations] would, in effect, greatly reduce the impact of the independent reviews government scientists have been carrying out over the last 35 years.”
— Jeremy Jacquot, graduate student in marine environmental biology, University of Southern California, August 11, 2008

“[This rule change] gives those agencies carte blanche to do what they want…The Bush Administration is trying to do by regulation what they can’t do by legislation.”
— Karla Raettig, legislative representative for wildlife conservation at the National Wildlife Federation, August 12, 2008

“History will judge this Administration as the most anti-environmental Administration in the history of the U.S.”
— Bob Irvin, Defenders of Wildlife, August 12, 2008

Image source: AP.

Tags: environment

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