pops
08-13-2008, 12:22 PM
Even though the Bush administration dislikes the 1973 Endangered Species Act, it has made no serious effort to rewrite the popular law in Congress. Instead, it has tried to achieve its goal by simply refusing to enforce the legislation.
So when government scientists decided that proposed projects had to be altered or stopped to protect an endangered species, administration officials would simply rewrite the scientific findings, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found.
Now the administration is trying another means of gutting the law. It has proposed a rule change — “a narrow regulatory change,” Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne calls it — that would strip government scientists of their role in reviewing federal projects for their impact on protected animals, birds, fish and reptiles.
If the change is implemented, federal agencies that propose projects would also determine whether those projects might endanger species protected by law. The concept of independent review by biologists at the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service — a core concept of the Endangered Species Act since its passage — would disappear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GOP’s desire to see an end to all of those pesky checks and balances that accompany Constitutional law should now be quite obvious to anyone who cares to look. ANYONE who has not yet renounced their membership with the Republican party is a bona fide traitor to the Republic. SEE YOU IN ST PAUL!!
So when government scientists decided that proposed projects had to be altered or stopped to protect an endangered species, administration officials would simply rewrite the scientific findings, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found.
Now the administration is trying another means of gutting the law. It has proposed a rule change — “a narrow regulatory change,” Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne calls it — that would strip government scientists of their role in reviewing federal projects for their impact on protected animals, birds, fish and reptiles.
If the change is implemented, federal agencies that propose projects would also determine whether those projects might endanger species protected by law. The concept of independent review by biologists at the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service — a core concept of the Endangered Species Act since its passage — would disappear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GOP’s desire to see an end to all of those pesky checks and balances that accompany Constitutional law should now be quite obvious to anyone who cares to look. ANYONE who has not yet renounced their membership with the Republican party is a bona fide traitor to the Republic. SEE YOU IN ST PAUL!!