Bush Administration does it again

That's right, using lawyers and back door rule changing, the Bush administration via attorneys for the department of the Interior and the Commerce Department are crafting rule proposals that gut the Endangered Species Act.

How so?

The rule changes allow Federally funded projects the ability to determine for themselves whether a project will threaten an endangered species. Currently, any projects have to go through a sometime lengthy scientific screening process that determines if a species will be threatened, via Fish and Wildlife and other departments.

Also included in these new rule changes, it will be forbidden to consider whether emissions from those projects will contribute greenhouse gases that may harm an endangered species. That little gem is in response to climate change, via Arctic sea ice loss, will eventually extinct the polar bear. Some environmental groups were planning on using the polar bear's newly established endangered status to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The way this is going down, Congress will be exempted from the rule changes, and the rule changes will be in force before the November presidential election. Sure, The next administration can try and undo it, as may Congress, but both will take a long time. Another Bush example of "My way or the HIghway."

I will like to add that from personal experience Fish and Wildlife is pretty worthless, at least here in Maine. My attempts to get the Golden Eagles recognized went nowhere. I would have thought an eagle specialist would have been thrilled to verify the presence of an active nesting pair of rare birds. I later discovered that this same specialist was active in getting the bald eagle off the endangered species list. If Goldens were recognized in Maine, think of all the work that would mean.

Two more species have fallen the same fate here in Maine. The box turtle for one. I was proudly showiong my photos of the box turtle to a local school teacher, and she informed me that there had been box turtles in her area since she could remember. Yet on the Maine fish and Wildlife site, they list Box turtles as endangered but having no home range in Maine.

The last species is the Mountain Lion. For years folks had been reporting sightings all over Maine, yet Fish and Wildlife refused to confirm it. Finally faced with clear tracks in the mud, and photographs, they admitted the presence of a mountain lion, but claimed it was an isolated individual.

If active popluations of any of those three species were confirmed, any project in their vicinity would have to come under the scrutiny of...Fish and Wildlife. Just think of the paperwork. That's a lot of incentive to confirm endangered species, isn't it?