Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (2592)	4/19/2001 1:49:13 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

We need tee shirts and bumper stickers!! No. What you really need is a clue and a life. JLA

To: Mephisto who wrote (2592)	4/19/2001 2:12:20 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93284

A Threatened Act April 14, 2001 "Mr. Bush's own appointee as interior secretary, GALE NORTON, once filed a brief challenging the constitutionality of the act, and now she is in charge of administering it." I t was probably just a matter of time before the Bush administration tried to shorten the reach of the Endangered Species Act. The act is the most controversial of the great wave of environmental statutes enacted in the early 1970's. It also greatly annoys some of President Bush's core constituencies, like the logging and mining interests, which argue that by protecting habitat for the spotted owl and other species, the law inhibits economic development. Mr. Bush's own appointee as interior secretary, GALE NORTON, once filed a brief challenging the constitutionality of the act, and now she is in charge of administering it. So it was no surprise that Mr. Bush's new budget contained a provision that would weaken the act in the short run and could presage broader attacks in the future. In simplest terms, the provision would — for one year — relieve Ms. Norton's Fish and Wildlife Service of the obligation to address citizens' petitions or court orders aimed at getting new plants and animals on the endangered species list, as well as the related obligation to protect their habitats. The service would be required to honor existing court orders, but protecting new species would be left entirely to Ms. NORTON and her subordinates. For conservationists, that is not a happy prospect. Nearly every important move to protect endangered species, from Pacific salmon to the spotted owl, has originated not with the government but with citizens' petitions and lawsuits. Remove those private efforts from the equation, and some of the greatest environmental triumphs of the last 30 years would not have happened. As one critic noted, "the administration has pulled up the drawbridge on Noah's Ark, at least for a year." The administration says that the purpose of the provision is to give it time to reorder its priorities. It argues, with some justification, that Fish and Wildlife has been overwhelmed with hundreds of petitions and lawsuits asking it to list new species and that this, in turn, has limited the agency's ability to devise rescue plans for species it has already identified as needing protection. It also points out that last November the Clinton administration, feeling similarly besieged, declared a moratorium on considering new listings so that it could address old ones. But getting one's house in order is not a justification for devaluing the role of individual citizens and the courts. Moreover, Congress has a habit of rolling over one-year moratoriums into succeeding years. Should that happen, a one-year deterrent to citizen lawsuits could become a permanent deterrent, with unfortunate consequences. The best answer would be to increase the Fish and Wildlife Service's budget for listing and protecting endangered or threatened species. Although the Bush administration has requested that the current budget of $6.3 million be increased by about $2 million, that will still leave the agency well short of the $80 million to $120 million it says it needs over the next five years to handle both old and new listings. Endangered species in this country have never had an easy time of it. Their prospects are diminishing under Mr. Bush. nytimes.com Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company