Bush admin. proposes to weaken Endangered Species Act

Just months before President Bush leaves office, his administration is antagonizing environmentalists by proposing changes that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether subdivisions, dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered animals and plants. The proposal would cut out the advice of government scientists who have been weighing in on such decisions for 35 years. Agencies also could not consider a project's contribution to global warming in their analysis. The Bush administration has proposed sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act, releasing a plan to give federal agencies the authority to decide without expert consultation whether their activities could harm endangered and threatened species. Administration officials contend the proposal will make the law easier to implement, but critics say the plan would undermine federal protection of imperiled plants and animals. Announced on Aug. 11 by the head of the US Interior Department, the proposed changes would relax the current requirement that federal agencies consult with federal wildlife experts to ensure activities they undertake or approve -- such as logging, mining and road construction -- do not adversely affect listed species. Thousands of such consultations occur each year, but the administration argues they are not worth the hassle. "The existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts and delays," said US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who told reporters the proposal aims to bring the Endangered Species Act "into the 21st century." Under the proposed revisions, federal agencies would be permitted to bypass the consultation process if they believe the action in question would cause little harm to listed species. If an agency chooses to skip consultation, it would be responsible for any subsequent harm caused to the species in question. The plan also imposes new deadlines on federal wildlife agencies to respond to a request for consultation, requiring a response within 60 days. If they fail to respond within that time-frame, the project in question may proceed without their analysis. The proposal is in part driven by the administration's concern about the potential use of the Endangered Species Act to force limits on greenhouse gas emissions. In May, the Interior chief reluctantly listed the polar bear as threatened, citing evidence that global warming is melting Arctic sea ice and putting the ice-dependent bears at risk. Such a listing could force federal agencies to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions of their activities on polar bear habitat, something the Bush administration opposes. When announcing the polar bear decision, Kempthorne suggested he would take steps to ensure that concern is eliminated -- something the new proposal addresses. "It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impact affecting species," he said. "With these changes, the Bush administration threatens to undo more than 30 years of progress," said John Kostyack, a senior official with the National Wildlife Federation, one of the nation's largest environmental groups. Kostyack and other critics contend federal agencies do not have the expertise to assess the impacts of their activities on endangered species -- and little interest in ensuring species are protected. "These changes take unbiased, professional wildlife biologists out of the equation and put decisions in the hands of political appointees," he said. Critics say the administration has little interest in enforcing the law and is keen to relax endangered species protections in a bid to please homebuilders as well as mining and logging interests. Bob Irvin of Defenders of Wildlife said most federal agencies have no wildlife biologists on staff so the new rule would be "a case of asking the fox to guard the chicken coop." The new plan "repeats and includes all of the disdain for science and political trumping of expertise that has characterized previous Bush administration efforts to dismantle fundamental environmental laws," said Sierra Club President Carl Pope. The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposal. The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Interior Department, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.VA), said he was "deeply troubled." Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), head of the Senate's environment committee, said Bush's plan was illegal. Environmentalists complained the proposals would gut protections for endangered animals and plants. "This proposed rule... gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," Rahall said.