By Sharon Guynup Your column here
NO MORE BALD EAGLES? SEA TURTLES? Peregrine falcons? Manatees?
That could be the legacy our children inherit if an aggressive, back-door overhaul of America’s wildlife protections is rammed through by the Bush administration. With Congress on August recess, the administration has sneaked a fast-track proposal into the Federal Register that will gut the 35 year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA) — changes it has been unable to push through Congress. Three years ago, a Republican-led House bill reforming the act died in the Senate.
The administration has also gagged public opinion on the matter, offering an extremely brief 30-day public comment period and no public hearings. The changes do not require Congressional approval, and could go into effect before November’s presidential election.
The new rule will eliminate mandatory scientific review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), agencies charged with preventing the extinction of 1,353 U.S. plant and animal species currently listed as threatened or endangered. These agencies oversaw more than 300,000 such scientific reviews between 1998 and 2002.
Under the new plan, the federal agency in charge of a building project — be it a new dam, mine, highway, offshore drilling operation or other federally-funded or federally-approved construction project — will decide whether that project poses dangers to already-imperiled species, or requires input from wildlife scientists.
Suppose there’s a proposal before the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) to drill for natural gas near a national park that is home,say,to an ESA listed species like the grizzly bear. Under the new rule, MMS geologists and fossil fuel specialists would evaluate ecological impacts and be permitted to green-light the drilling. Would you consult your accountant if you were having a heart attack? The administration argues that agency experts with absolutely no background in wildlife or botany are qualified to make these often-complex calls regarding plants and animals already teetering on the brink.
The rule would also allow a return to pre- ESA tactics, when agencies carved huge construction projects (such as roads), into multiple small projects that focused analysis on immediate local impacts, never considering any overall harmful ecological consequences.
Proposed changes also state that if Fish and Wildlife or National Marine Fisheries scientists cannot reach a decision on a construction project within 60 days,work can move forward without further study. This timeline is virtually impossible for these severely under-funded, understaffed agencies, especially for projects requiring serious scientific research.
The Interior Department is not allowing any e-mailed or faxed comments, nor are they holding public hearings. In contrast: Clinton’s roadless rule regulating new road-building in national forests was given two years of public hearings and massed 1.6 million comments. Public opinion polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support wildlife conservation.
The administration’s proposed ESA rule was drafted, says Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, to prevent the act from being “used as a back door” to regulate the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming (In May, the polar bear became the first species listed as threatened because of climate change). The rule would prohibit federal agencies from assessing the effects of a project’s GHG emissions on species or habitats.
What the administration is really proposing is the elimination of ESA’s checks and balances, whereby wildlife scientists ensure that taxpayer-financed construction projects,and projects on land taxpayers own, do not harm threatened or endangered species. This system has fostered dramatic recoveries of big horn sheep, whooping cranes, grizzly bears, and other species, and prevented our national symbol, the bald eagle,from going the way of the dodo.
Sen. Barack Obama has stated that he would toss out the ruling if he wins the White House. Sen. John McCain had no comment, a hint that if elected he would let the ruling stand, especially considering his rating of just 27.8 out of a possible 100 given by the League of Conservation Voters on his environmental voting performance from 2003 to 2007.
Congress could over-ride the rule in the fall appropriations bill, or could overturn it through legislation. But it’s smarter to stop the rule making now rather than fighting it later.
The administration should scrap the proposed ESA changes, but if they move forward, then it is imperative that they lengthen the public comment period to at least six months, open it to e-mails and faxes, and institute public hearings. Our wild heritage deserves protections based on sound science and democratic principles, not on political concerns.
SHARON GUYNUP’s first book is titled “State of the Wild 2006: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans.” She writes on science and the environment for national magazines and Web sites.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 26, 2008. Read the original PDF.