Rolling Stone headlines it “Bush’s Final FU”: the US Department of the Interior yesterday released last-minute regulations weakening protections for endangered species.
They’ve nixed a 35-year-old requirement that independent biologists review the wildlife impacts of new projects at such non-ecologist-dominated entities as the Federal Highway Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Interior is also desperately trying to pre-empt groups who would use the protected status of polar bears to fight greenhouse gas emissions. “The Endangered Species Act was never intended to be a back door opportunity for climate change policy,” said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (New York Times).
Here’s the nuts and bolts from the AP:
Current rules require biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to sign off on projects even when it is determined that they are not likely to harm species. The rule finalized Thursday would do away with that requirement, reducing the number of consultations so that the government’s experts can focus on cases that pose the greatest harm to wildlife, officials said.
But environmentalists said that the rule changes would put decisions about endangered species into the hands of agencies with a vested interest in advancing a project and with little expertise about wildlife.
(If the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse comes to mind at this point, you’re not alone: two environmental NGO directors made that comment.)
This is only one example of ‘midnight regulations’ the Bush administration is pushing through, and the headline of Interior’s extremely defensive press release calls it a “narrow change”. But conservationists say it’s huge. Jamie Rappaport, former director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, said it targets “the absolute heart of the Endangered Species Act”, removing “a system of checks and balances that provides an essential safety net for imperilled animals and plants”.
The press release lists four criteria for bypassing the biologists. One is lack of foreseen harm; another is impacts that “are the result of global processes and can not be reliably predicted or measured on the scale of species current range”. Read: climate change. So now you can’t stop a coal power plant in Virginia on the grounds that its emissions help warm the atmosphere and melt icy Alaskan polar bear habitat. The bears have been newly and reluctantly listed as threatened species (Nature subscription required).
This is triage: having dug in its heels against any legal limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the administration just lost a Clean Air Act-based lawsuit to stop a new coal plant and is facing another on ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act.
When it comes to sweating polar bears, the wide and excited coverage gets a little muddled. The AP notes the global warming provision, and the New York Times says it is the main motivation for jettisoning independent reviews.
The Washington Post does not mention climate change, though it says a separate finding yesterday “means the bears’ protected status could not be used to block activities such as oil and gas development outside their Alaska habitat”. But it’s actually exploration inside their habitat that’s being allowed, according to the AP and LA Times.
Another point of contention: Obama promised to reverse the new rules, which take effect nine days before his inauguration – but reports differ on how easy this is. A complete undo requires him to restart the rulemaking process, which took the Bush administration four months working full steam ahead. But the New York Times notes Obama has the quicker option of suspending the regulations – or of settling the lawsuits that environmental groups have speedily filed.
More:
Bush may introduce environmental regulations
Image: Getty