Will Bush rush through changes to Endangered Species Act?
Despite receiving thousands of protests about proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, President Bush and his cronies at the Interior Department appear ready to rush their new rules through before President-Elect Obama takes office in January.
According to the Associated Press, "The rules must be published by Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, the new president could undo them with the stroke of a pen."
The most damning element of the new rules takes away the long-standing independent scientific review previously required before new government projects begin to see if they would impact endangered plants or animals. As I wrote in August:
House Democrats, meanwhile, say they are looking for ways to block these rules should they be published by the end of the week. One tool at their disposal is the Congressional Review Act, a little-used law only employed once in the last 12 years.
The Interior Department received more than 250,000 comments on these proposed rules, even though they took draconian steps to limit public comment. Those comments were "read" at a rate of 7,000 per hour, and even then, appear to have been completely ignored.
Developing, obviously.
According to the Associated Press, "The rules must be published by Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, the new president could undo them with the stroke of a pen."
The most damning element of the new rules takes away the long-standing independent scientific review previously required before new government projects begin to see if they would impact endangered plants or animals. As I wrote in August:
The new rules appear to, in many ways, remove the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from reviewing many government-sponsored projects (such as highways) to see if they would impact local species. Instead, the federal agency in charge of the project would be allowed to makes its own decisions about whether or not the construction would impact any endangered plants or animals.The rules also make it impossible to protect endangered species by saying that they are at risk because of global warming (which means the Endangered Species Act could not be used a back-door leglislation to regulate greenhouse gases).
House Democrats, meanwhile, say they are looking for ways to block these rules should they be published by the end of the week. One tool at their disposal is the Congressional Review Act, a little-used law only employed once in the last 12 years.
The Interior Department received more than 250,000 comments on these proposed rules, even though they took draconian steps to limit public comment. Those comments were "read" at a rate of 7,000 per hour, and even then, appear to have been completely ignored.
Developing, obviously.
See more articles from Extinction Blog
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.plentymag.com/blog-mt1/mt-tb.cgi/5973
