Posted by Jane Clark

" According to Dale Hall, Service Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the changes would not need approval by Congress and could be signed by Secretary Kempthorne or a representative of the Interior Department. "

Bush Administration Seeks to Gut Endangered Species Act
According to internal documents released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bush Administration is considering a set of regulations that would gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that prohibits industrial and other activities that could harm the habitat of threatened and endangered species.

The proposed changes would weaken the law by reducing protection for wildlife habitat and severely limiting the number of endangered species that could be listed. Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said that the draft regulations “undermine every aspect of law – recovery, listing, preventing extinction, critical habitat, federal oversight and habitat conservation plans – all of it is gutted. Simply stated, it is the worst attack on the Endangered Species Act in the past 35 years.” Perhaps the most significant proposed change transfers authority of vulnerable species to the states. This provision would empower states to veto endangered species introductions and status changes, as well as administer virtually all aspects of the Endangered Species Act within their borders.

The proposed draft rules lift language from both former Senator Kempthorne’s (now Secretary of Interior) proposed 1998 legislation and a controversial bill by former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA). Pombo tried for years to gut the ESA, and when he failed to do so, the Administration vowed to change the ESA through administrative regulation. According to Dale Hall, Service Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the changes would not need approval by Congress and could be signed by Secretary Kempthorne or a representative of the Interior Department. The draft regulations are being circulated for final inter-agency review and are expected to be formally unveiled later this spring. For more information, go to www.peer.org or contact Carol Goldberg, PEER, at 202-265-7337.

NEW PLAN TO GUT ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT — Key Wildlife Protections Weakened by a Series of Administrative Redefinitions

Washington, DC — The U.S. Interior Department is preparing a wide-ranging set of regulations which substantially weaken the federal Endangered Species Act, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Biological Diversity.

“These draft regulations slash the Endangered Species Act from head to toe,” said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “They undermine every aspect of law – recovery, listing, preventing extinction, critical habitat, federal oversight and habitat conservation plans – all of it is gutted.”

The draft regulations would –

Remove recovery of a species or population as a protection standard;
Allow projects to proceed that have been determined to threaten species with extinction;
Permit destruction of all restored habitat within critical habitat areas;
Prevent critical habitat areas from being used to protect against disturbance, pesticides, exotic species, and disease;
Severely limit the listing of new endangered species; and
Empower states to veto endangered species introductions as well as administer virtually all aspects of the Endangered Species Act within their borders.

“Kicking responsibility for endangered species protection to the states will make it nearly impossible to restore national oversight when states fail to protect endangered species,” stated Southwest PEER Director Daniel R. Patterson. “State biologists will be under enormous political pressure to accommodate development interests while lacking, in many cases, even rudimentary legal protection to defend scientific concerns about species survival.”

Following the collapse of former U.S. Representative Richard Pombo’s efforts to legislatively weaken the Endangered Species Act in 2006, the Bush administration pledged to use administrative rulemaking to accomplish some of the same objectives.

“If these regulations had been in place 30 years ago, the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and gray wolf would never have been listed as endangered species and the peregrine falcon, black-footed ferret, and California condor would never have been reintroduced to new states,” added Suckling. “This plan makes recovery all but impossible for most endangered species. Simply stated, it is the worst attack on the Endangered Species Act in the past 35 years.”

“Although states are key conservation partners, the reason we have a national act is that leaving species protection to the states was a recipe for extinctions,” Patterson concluded.

The draft regulations are being circulated for final inter-agency review and are expected to be formally unveiled later this spring. Congress could also proscribe or limit Bush administration proposals through the appropriations process.

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