[BCNnet] ESA - press release

[Carolyn A. Marsh]

FYI, Carolyn Marsh

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Press contact: Josh Mogerman, 312/780-7424 or jmogerman at nrdc.org

If you are not a member of the press, please write to us at
nrdcinfo at nrdc.org or see our contact page
<http://www.nrdc.org/contactUs/default.asp> 

Groups Fight to Save the Endangered Species Act 

Last Minute Bush Rule Changes Threaten American Wildlife

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (December 17, 2008) - Environmentalists and commercial
fishermen are fighting to protect the Endangered Species Act regulations
from last-minute changes by the Bush administration that will dramatically
weaken and limit the use of the landmark wildlife protection law, according
to legal experts and scientists. The Bush plan has been roundly panned for
eliminating science from federal agency decision making and ignoring
objections from hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens across the
country. In an effort to maintain protection for wildlife, a coalition of
groups filed suit today to halt the last-minute rules.

 

The suit claims that the Bush rule changes are illegal and expose America's
most vulnerable plants and animals to new threats by allowing federal
agencies to self-consult about potential project impacts on endangered
species. In a major break from typical national environmental policy, no
environmental impact statement has been conducted.

 

Though the changes were announced last week, the final language was not
published until Tuesday morning. After reviewing the changes, the groups'
fears were realized regarding the changes. The suit was filed in the
Northern District of California. Earthjustice is representing the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club, Conservation Northwest, The
Humane Society of the United States, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's
Associations (PCFFA), and the Institute for Fisheries Resources. NRDC will
also be co-counsel with Earthjustice.

 

"We've gone to court over this issue before, we're doing so now and we'll
continue to do so until the proper protections are in place for wildlife in
peril," said Janette Brimmer, attorney for Earthjustice. "Requiring
compliance with the Endangered Species Act only part of the time is not what
was intended when Congress originally passed the ESA. These new set of rules
are not in compliance with the original law."

 

"The Endangered Species Act is the cornerstone of our country's
environmental laws and the rule-changes in question run roughshod over its
basic mandate," said Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC's Endangered Species
Program. "If the Bush administration thinks that the green groups and the
general public will just step aside they are tone-deaf and wrong."

 

"When it comes to protecting wildlife, we should listen to the scientists
who spend their lives studying these animals. If they say global warming is
the biggest threat to polar bears, then we should do what it takes to
eliminate that threat," said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope.
"These rules would be a lasting reminder of all of the disdain for science
and political trumping of expertise that have characterized the Bush
Administration's efforts to dismantle fundamental environmental laws."

 

"This last ditch effort to gut the nation's strongest wildlife-protection
law is patently illegal, and will not succeed," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice
president and chief counsel of animal protection litigation and research for
The Humane Society of the United States.  "The party is over for these kinds
of conservation rollbacks, and it's time to start talking about
strengthening our commitments to the protection of endangered species."

 

"Salmon recovery on the west coast depends on keeping the most
environmentally damaged stocks from extinction," said Glen Spain of the
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA), many of whose
members depend on healthy salmon runs for their livelihoods. "This new rule
would allow the very same federal water agencies who have destroyed many of
our salmon runs through years of mismanagement to run for cover and escape
their responsibility.  The habitat protections and water reforms salmon
desperately need to survive could be impossible under this new rule.  This
could be the death knell for a billion dollars salmon fishery already hard
pressed to survive." 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20090115/3c7d8240/attachment-0001.html