This morning I received this email from Kristin Johnson at the National Wildlife Foundation:
Dear Friend of Wildlife,
According to leaked documents obtained by the National Wildlife Federation, the Bush Administration is planning to rollback protections for America's imperiled wildlife by re-writing the regulations of the Endangered Species Act.
If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years.
We need your help to make sure this attack on the Endangered Species Act is met with a huge public outcry!
"Do not be fooled when the Administration claims it is merely tweaking the law," said NWF's John Kostyack, Executive Director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming.
"The cumulative impact of these changes equals a full blown attack on America's premier conservation law. We owe it to future generations to stop this attack and continue our legacy of protecting wildlife on the brink of extinction."
Please email Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and make sure he knows that the American people will not stand for any attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
And please forward this email to any friend or family member who might speak up for wildlife too!
Thank you so much,
Kristin Johnson
Grassroots Mobilization Coordinator
National Wildlife Federation
Here's the AP's report on the reason for the preceding email:
The new regulations follow a pattern by the Bush administration not to seek input from its scientists. The regulations were drafted by attorneys at both the Interior and Commerce Departments. Scientists with both agencies were first briefed on the proposal last week during a conference call, according to an official who asked not to be identified.
Last month, in similar fashion, the Environmental Protection Agency surprised its scientific experts when it decided it did not want to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The rule changes unveiled Monday would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that the agency itself determines is unlikely to harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently participate in tens of thousands of such reviews each year.
The revisions also would limit which effects can be considered harmful and set a 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project when they are asked to become involved. If no decision is made within 60 days, the project can move ahead.
"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.
Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.
The EPA is beloved by radical environmentalists and many scientists because it has real teeth – exactly the kind of teeth that I and many others object to: the EPA permits (nay, mandates) the government to stop any use of private property that it deems is dangerous to endangered wildlife. The property owner is not compensated at all – his property (or the use of it) is simply taken from him. I object to this kind of government power on principle, no matter how worthy the cause. For this reason, I would like to see the EPA removed from law, or modified to include fair market value compensation for the affected property owners.
The EPA has another problem, and this is the one that the Bush administration is addressing: the government scientists currently charged with making the EPA reviews are themselves predominantly radical environmentalists. The inmates are in charge of the asylum. The decisions coming out of the EPA reviews have been tainted time and time again by deceptive “science” and even outright fraud (for example, the completely manufactured data that underlaid many of the decisions about spotted owl habitat, now freely admitted by the government scientists involved). Bush's proposed actions would take the review power away from that group and hand it to many other groups of bureaucrats. I suppose that may be a good idea, but I'm having trouble getting excited about the notion – I'd much rather see the underlying problems with the EPA addressed.
It's interesting to observe how organized science is subject to the same forces that affect the rest of humanity. Different branches of science get their funding in different ways, and this means that their incentives derive from different sources. The resulting behaviors are then (surprise!) much different. For example, materials scientists are mainly funded by companies or governmental organizations who are interested in specific results. An aircraft company might want a lighter window material; an electronics company purer silicon; an oil company cheaper refinery processes. Those scientists who can consistently produce more useful materials are rewarded – and guess what? We get more materials scientists who develop the miraculous materials we now use every day. How do environmental biologists get funded? The rock stars of that world are those who have succeeded in “proving” that species are endangered – even if in order to do that the scientist had to invent a new species (think of the Florida Panther) or invent his data (like the spotted owl) or selectively ignore populations (wolves are scare in the U.S., but common in Canada). We have a culture that encourages environmental biologists to “discover” endangered species, and to support protection for them whatever the cost to humans. Some balance would be very welcome here.
I could get very excited about a piece of government that combined compensated takings (along the lines of eminent domain before Kelo), science review (with emphasis on ecological impact rather than species impact), and economic review (to allow judgments about where mitigation dollars might best be spent). Then we Americans could collectively decide how important we thought this effort was, as measured directly by how much of our hard-earned treasure we're willing to spend on it.
But this is not what we have. Instead, we have uncompensated takings, highly biased “science”, and no consideration of the economics at all. We can hardly be surprised at the result. I'm not optimistic about any near-term reform, as this is not an issue that voters (a) understand, or (b) passionately care about in any interesting numbers...
