President Bush’s proposed gutting and filleting of the Endangered Species Act is much the same as that which Richard Pombo, as chair of the House Resources Committee had tried to pass by legislation.
The executive order changes would:
1. Allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether building and other activities were or were not endangering species, rather than consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service.
2. Forbid federal agencies from assessing emissions that contribute to global warming.
Fact is, folks at the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management often get these reviews wrong. The story notes thast internal reviews by Marine Fisheries and Fish and Wildlife concluded about half the unilateral evaluations by the USFS and BLM that determined their agencies wildfire prevention projects were unlikely to harm protected species were not legally or scientifically valid.
Yes, this could be frozen by a new administration, but, it’s always a pain to roll back stuff like this.
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