$93 million to save an endangered species? You bet.
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ENDANGERED SPECIES: The cost of conservation
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Tag Archives: Endangered Species Act
REPUBLICAN WAR ON REGULATION: Robert Redford speaks out about President Bush’s last minute attempt to weaken environmental legislation
Rachel Maddow Show: Robert Redford Interview Nov. 24, 2008
President Bush’s contempt for the environment and environmentalism raises its ugly head via his eleventh hour attacks on environmental regulations. His attempt to weaken environmental legislation is reckless and dangerous, because he is meddling with a movement that he can’t comprehend. Surely, he knows that Obama, the new Senate, and the new Congress will work to overturn these rule changes, so Bush is certainly behaving callously.
Furthermore, President Bush also knows that our country is currently focused with other pressing matters, so he may be taking advantage of tough times to impose his narrow and misguided ideology. President Bush’s repeals and weakening of environmental regulation may give irresponsible developers and polluters an opportunity to start projects and show reliance by investing time and resources. Therefore, these projects will be difficult to stop or reverse. What’s more, Obama may not be able to overturn most of Bush’s malfeasance right away, because in order to reverse President Bush’s malfeasance, any proposed responses or remedies will have to go through the administrative process (like the commenting period) before any changes can be reversed. However, Obama will at least have competent people running the country, so we can return to being a progressive country. Certainly, President Bush merely put our country backwards many years.
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BUSH ADMINISTRATION employs 11th hour attacks on environmental regulation
Via OH, FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE!.
On the Net:
- EPA moves to relax clean air rules near national parks
- Bush angers environmentalists with last-minute rule changes
- From ProPublica:
Here is a rundown of rules and regulations that the Bush administration is pushing through the rulemaking process in its waning days. We will update the list regularly by adding new rules, inserting links to breaking news on each rule, and tracking each rule through the rulemaking process. If you know of other rules we should add to this list, please send us an email here. You can use our tip-sheet to get started on your rules research.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: The Bush Administration’s last minute push to deregulate spreads beyond the Endangered Species Act
Who needs regulation—especially environmental regulation, it’s just too inconvenient for some folks. From the Washington Post:
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.
. . .
A rule put forward by the National Marine Fisheries Service and now under final review by the OMB would lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and would give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.
An Alaska commercial fishing source, granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about private conversations, said that senior administration officials promised to “get the rule done by the end of this month” and that the outcome would be a big improvement.
Lee Crockett of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environment Group said the administration has received 194,000 public comments on the rule and protests from 80 members of Congress as well as 160 conservation groups. “This thing is fatally flawed” as well as “wildly unpopular,” Crockett said.
Two other rules nearing completion would ease limits on pollution from power plants, a major energy industry goal for the past eight years that is strenuously opposed by Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups.
One rule, being pursued over some opposition within the Environmental Protection Agency, would allow current emissions at a power plant to match the highest levels produced by that plant, overturning a rule that more strictly limits such emission increases. According to the EPA’s estimate, it would allow millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, worsening global warming.
A related regulation would ease limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants near national parks.
A third rule would allow increased emissions from oil refineries, chemical factories and other industrial plants with complex manufacturing operations.
These rules “will force Americans to choke on dirtier air for years to come, unless Congress or the new administration reverses these eleventh-hour abuses,” said lawyer John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: Interior Department’s review of the Endangered Species Act a sham
The Interior Department under the Bush Administration is hell-bent on gutting Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In order to minimize the impact on endangered species, Section 7 requires developers—or anyone potentially harming endangered species and their habitat—to consult with federal officials to determine a mitigation plan for the proposed development project, so the ESA doesn’t actually mean zero development in most cases. Nonetheless, weakening the ESA has been the Holy Grail for most developers and republicans.
According to Grist, “Normally, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a 90-day comment period for a rule change like this, [but] when the draft of this rule change was first released, it was cut to 60, [and] now it’s down to 30.” In the end, the Department received 300,000 comments, and 100,000 of these comments were letters.
Previously, the Department decided to disallow commenting via email. This was a strategic move by the Department, because the Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must review all the comments and publish a final rule before the new president is elected. Barack Obama is against the changes to the ESA, so it is now or never for the Bush Administration. From TheNewsTribune.com, WA:
The Interior Department received 300,000 comments about the proposed changes, which supposedly were intended to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from threatening projects thousands of miles away.
About 100,000 of those comments were form letters; the ones that remain include comments from scientists, lawyers, other government agencies and members of Congress.
Actually, “comments” is something of a misnomer since the submissions can run 70 pages or more. At the pace Interior has established, each staffer will have to read and digest seven comments a minute to meet the deadline. Some paper shredders don’t work that fast.
The Interior Department’s review is sham and an insult to the people and organizations who took time to analyze the proposed rules and respond thoughtfully.
If the Bush administration succeeds in ramrodding its proposal through, it could take years for a new president to formally undo – if the next resident of the White House is so inclined.
Democrat Barack Obama is opposed to the rewrite of the endangered species law; Republican John McCain has not taken a position. McCain has said in the past that he is in favor of unspecified changes to the ESA.
The determination of this presidency to weaken wildlife protections is remarkable. Would that the same could be said for its commitment to fully vetting public policy.
To keep up with the deadline, the comment reviewers will have to review 6,250 comments per hour. From the Associated Press:
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s office, according to the e-mail, will be responsible for analyzing and responding to them.
The public comment period ended last week, which initiated the review.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., whose own letter opposing the changes is among the thousands that will be processed, called the 32-hour deadline a “last-ditch attempt to undermine the long-standing integrity of the Endangered Species program.”
At that rate, according to a committee aide’s calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means that each member of the team would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute.
It usually takes months to review public comments on a proposed rule, and by law the government must respond before a rule becomes final.
“It would seem very difficult for them in four days to respond to so many thoughtful comments in an effective way,” said Eric Biber, an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.
Along with other law professors across the country, Biber sent in 70 pages of comment.
Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall told the AP on Tuesday that the short time frame for processing the comments was requested by Kempthorne and would set a record.
On the Net:
- Consultations with Federal Agencies: Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act
- Tell us what you think! (Quickly.) (By postal mail only, please.): Bush administration hustles through ESA rule change with minimal feedback; Obama opposes
- Stifling Public Comment On Species Act
- Comment On Endangered Species Act
- 200,000 Letters In 32 Hours?
- Bush administration bent on getting last licks in
- Rush to read 200,000 comments on Species Act
- FWS Staff to Review Seven Comments a Minute
