Bush Administration Puts Engangered Species Act At Risk
A special “Midnight Session” conducted late last month could put many of the endangered species of animals and plants in our country in extreme risk. In order to meet a deadline of 60 days before the current administration leaves office, they are hard at work to finalize regulations that would eliminate federal wildlife experts from having a deciding factor if federal projects pose a threat to endangered species. This just leaves me scratching my head because this is one of a few instances in which this administration is trying to push out last minute regulations to post further damage to our already fragile environment ( Oil Shale Drilling being another ).
I did not know regulations like this could be put into place over such a short period, but they are going to go through with them. Even with heavy criticism from other lawmakers and environmentalists, the Department of the Interior is still going through with it.
The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.
These regulations would also exclude federal agencies from worrying about carbon dioxide emissions that also pose thread to endangered species. At the moment, it looks like they are on target to meeting the deadline. If they do, it would make it hard for the new administration to overturn them. There does exist a Congressional Review Act that would allow Congress to overturn these ridiculous regulations, but has not been used often. Luckily some people in Congress are still fighting for the environment representative for the House said:
The House, in consultation with the incoming administration and relevant committees, will review what oversight tools are at our disposal regarding this and other last minute attempts to inflict severe damage to the law in the waning moments of the Bush administration.
What gets me is that the executive branch has this type of power without consent from the Congress. I just don’t get why our government is allowed to continue to pursue their own interests and fill their pockets and nobody seems to be stopping them. There seems like no good that could come out of a bill like this or the drilling of Oil Shale and regulations like these can be passed.
What are you thoughts on the Bush administration’s “midnight regulations” that throw away years of hard work to help protect our environment?
All of this is to give industry the opportunity to step in and destroy even further what little habitat is left for any species at all really. If its not oil they’ll be after, its hydro electricity through giant mega dams that block off entire waterways to migrating fish species. Look at the massive decline in west coast Salmon stocks…..
Soon the Bush administration will be gone, and we can only hope to see change with the next government that comes into power.
I really hope that Obama goes back and fixes this, but often once you take something away or deregulate it, getting it back is incredibly hard.
I think it will be interesting to see who Bush ends up pardoning as well. Clinton did some pretty crazy pardoning right there at the end, but I think Bush has potential to get even crazier with it.