GAINESVILLE, Florida, January 23, 2009 (ENS) – A coalition of conservation groups has notified the National Marine Fisheries Service of its intent to file a lawsuit as early as March if the agency does not act immediately to protect imperiled sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.

The action comes after fisheries observer data showed that the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery, which harvests reef fish like grouper and tilefish, resulted in the capture of nearly 1,000 threatened and endangered sea turtles between July 2006 and the end of 2007.

The coalition urges that the commercial bottom longline fishery be suspended until the federal agency meets its legal obligations under the Endangered Species Act to ensure that the fishery does not imperil sea turtles and other threatened species in the Gulf of Mexico.

All six species of sea turtles occurring in the United States are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Loggerhead sea turtle in Boynton Beach, Florida (Photo by PelagicSal)

Even though the fishery has far exceeded the number of turtles it is allowed to take under the Endangered Species Act, the Fisheries Service, has declined to close the fishery while it studies options for reducing turtle take, a decision the conservation groups claim is illegal.

“Allowing this fishery to continue to kill threatened and endangered turtles while the government studies the problem is irresponsible and illegal,” said Andrea Treece, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Now that the National Marine Fisheries Service knows the longline fleet is jeopardizing the future of the turtle populations they have a duty to act immediately,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network.

Loggerhead sea turtles are of greatest concern to the groups because this species accounted for 799 of the 974 captured turtles in the government analysis. This is more than three times the number of loggerheads the Service authorized the fishery to take in 2005.

Loggerhead nesting populations in Florida have dropped by 41 percent over the past 10 years. The groups say the large number of juvenile and reproductive adult turtles injured or killed by the bottom longline fishery is likely contributing to this steep decline.

“It’s devastating to think about all the hard work and progress we’ve made safeguarding Florida’s loggerheads and their nesting beaches being destroyed by this rampant level of take,” said David Godfrey, executive director of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation based in Gainsville. “We must stop and reassess the impacts of this fishery before it’s too late.”

The Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery operates primarily off the west coast of Florida, an area that provides key habitat for several sea turtle species, including loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, and green turtles.

Bottom longliners lay a mainline up to 10 miles long with as many as 2,100 baited hooks. Sea turtles are caught when they attempt to eat the bait or become entangled when swimming near a line.

“The use of longlining in the Gulf of Mexico is tragic. Loggerheads, Kemp’s ridleys and other sea turtles die caught by a fishing method that has no regard for the waste it entails and the death of endangered species,” said Carole Allen, Gulf office director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. “It reminds many of us of the slaughter of sea turtles drowning in shrimp trawls before Turtle Excluder Devices were required.”

A Turtle Excluder Device is a grid of bars fitted into a trawl net. Shrimp pass through the bars and are caught in the bag end of the trawl. When larger animals, such as sea turtles are caught in the trawl they strike the bars and are ejected through the opening.

“There are other ways to catch the same fish without killing turtles,” said Sarthou. “The Service needs to follow the precedent set by Gulf shrimpers and require a change in gear now.”

Last month the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a revised Recovery Plan for the Northwest Atlantic Population of the loggerhead sea turtle, the first revision since 1991.

The recovery plan identifies 208 actions needed to achieve recovery of the Northwest Atlantic population of the loggerhead sea turtle, including new regulations to require turtle excluder devices in fisheries where they are not now required.

“Loggerhead sea turtles face many domestic and international threats, and thousands die around the world every year,” said Jim Balsiger, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “This plan will help our agency and our partners to conserve and recover the species by providing a blueprint to address threats in the northwestern Atlantic.”

The northwestern Atlantic sea turtle population includes the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Florida accounts for more than 90 percent of the loggerhead nesting in the United States, and is one of the two largest remaining loggerhead nesting locations in the world. The other is on the beaches of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula.

Loggerheads dug more than 35,000 nests on Florida beaches last year, more than in 2007, which were the lowest nesting levels in the 20 year history of the state’s monitoring program. But this increase did not reverse the long-term declining trend between 1998 and 2008, according to Florida wildlife officials.

Generally, female turtles nest on the same beaches each season. Many scientists believe that hatchlings, when grown, return to their natal beaches to nest.

Threats to loggerhead survival include bottom trawlers that drag heavy gear across the ocean floor; longline and gillnet fisheries; legal and illegal harvest; vessel strikes; beach armoring; beach erosion; marine debris ingestion; oil pollution; light pollution; and predation by raccoons and feral hogs, among other native and exotic species.

The highest priority actions include monitoring trends on nesting beaches; maintaining the current length and quality of protected nesting beach; and acquiring and protecting additional properties on key nesting beaches; reducing vessel interactions with loggerheads; and maintaining the federal Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.

Because loggerheads migrate into the waters of many countries, the plan recommends that the federal government work with foreign nations to eliminate commercial and subsistence harvest; and enact regulations to minimize loggerhead bycatch in their fisheries.

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SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 17, 2008 (ENS) – Regulations announced by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne last week that would exempt many federal activities, including those that generate greenhouse gases, from review under the Endangered Species Act were published in the Federal Register Tuesday.

But the regulations are being challenged in court by three conservation groups – the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife, who filed suit in federal court for the Northern District of California the day the regulations were announced, December 11.

Unless overturned in court, the regulations will take effect on January 11, nine days before President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated and the presidency of George W. Bush comes to a close.

“These regulations undermine fundamental protections for the nation’s endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We hope an Obama administration or Congress will act quickly to undo this 11th hour attempt to weaken our most important law for protecting wildlife.”

The lawsuit argues that the regulations violate the Endangered Species Act and did not go through the required public review process. The regulations, first proposed on August 11, were rushed by the Bush administration through an abbreviated process in which more than 300,000 comments from the public were reviewed in three weeks, and environmental impacts were analyzed in a brief environmental assessment, rather than a fuller environmental impact statement.

“This is a clear example of a lame duck administration ramming through weakened regulations that are opposed by Congress and the public,” Greenwald said. “When the survival of species hangs in the balance, public policy should not be rushed.”

Under current regulations, federal agencies must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if the agencies permit, fund, or otherwise carry out actions that “may affect” endangered species, or if the Service has already determined those actions adversely affect endangered species.

Under the new regulations, federal agencies will themselves determine whether their actions are likely to adversely affect endangered species. That finding would determine whether the agency must consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Announcing the final regulations, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said, “With the regulations finalized today, federal agencies must still follow all existing consultation procedures, except in specific and limited instances where an action is not anticipated to adversely impact any member of a listed species.”

Polar bear clings to a shrinking ice floe
in a warming world. (Photo credit unknown)

The policy would also prohibit any consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from federal projects on endangered species such as the polar bear.

“When I announced the listing of the polar bear as threatened in May, I agreed with the President that the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool to set climate change policy,” Kempthorne said. “I also announced that day that we would propose common sense modifications to the existing regulations in order to provide greater certainty that the listing would not become a back door for setting climate change policy.”

Anticipating criticism of the regulations, Kempthorne said, “Importantly, the new regulations do not remove all consideration of the effects of climate change. Climate change should be considered when determining the environmental conditions under which actions are taking place.

He gave the example of a project that would pull water from a lake and it is predicted that, because of climate change, water levels in that lake will already be significantly reduced, then the expected lower lake levels should be taken into consideration, he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey has published a series of reports predicting that due to climate change loss of summer sea ice, crucial habitat for polar bears, could lead to the death of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears by mid-century, including all of Alaska’s polar bears.

The polar bear was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act on May 14, 2008. The conservation groups’ lawsuit seeks to ensure that the polar bear receives the full protections that other species receive under the law.

The polar bear is the largest of the world’s bear species and is distributed among 19 Arctic subpopulations – two of which, the Chukchi and the Southern Beaufort Sea populations, are located within the United States.

Polar bears are threatened with extinction from global warming, which is melting the Arctic sea ice where polar bears hunt for ringed and bearded seals, their primary food source.

“This rule makes a mockery of the Endangered Species Act, our nation’s most important wildlife protection law,” said Defenders of Wildlife Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark, who headed the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Clinton administration.

“The polar bear doesn’t have time for political maneuvers. Its habitat is melting away, its food is becoming scarce and the science is clear that the cause is global warming – yet the rule this administration released today affirms that little will be done to save the species from sure extinction,” said Clark.

Listing polar bears as threatened should help protect polar bear habitat from threats such as oil and gas development, which the Bush administration is aggressively pursuing in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska and has even proposed in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which provides the primary land denning habitat for the species, she said.

“Instead, the administration has made it clear with its 4(d) rule that the ESA will not provide any additional protections from these and other harmful activities than those that already exist under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and will provide no protection against emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the rise in global temperatures that directly threaten the polar bear,” said Clark.

Greenwald said, “The polar bear and numerous other species threatened by climate change need the protections of the Endangered Species Act to survive.”

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GAINESVILLE, Florida, December 8, 2008 (ENS) – “Today, it’s difficult to find a bar in South Florida that doesn’t have a sawfish ’saw’ hanging on the wall,” says George Burgess, a University of Florida ichthyologist, or fish expert.

Burgess serves as curator of the International Shark Attack File and also as keeper of the newly expanded National Sawfish Encounter Database, a repository of all known historical and current records of sawfish in the United States.

Distinguished by a long rostrum or “saw” that makes it a popular curio item and gives the fish its name, the sawfish has become a historical and cultural icon that is rapidly disappearing.

Sawfish once swam in bays, lagoons and rivers from New York to the Rio Grande, Burgess said. Today, the species’ U.S. range has shrunk to the waters off south Florida. On April 1, 2003 the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service placed the smalltooth sawfish on the Endangered Species List, making it the first marine fish species to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Two sub-species of sawfish exist – the smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, shares the western Atlantic and parts of the eastern Atlantic with the largetooth sawfish, P. perotteti.

“Sawfish are disappearing all over the world for basically the same reason, which is that their big saws snag very easily in fishing nets,” he said. “They have become despised as net wreckers because obviously a fisherman doesn’t like getting one in his net. So over the years most sawfish that were captured were killed.”
A smalltooth sawfish in the waters of South Florida (Photo courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History)

Even those sawfish lucky enough to be tossed back into the water were often released without their saws, as people came to value these body parts as curio items, Burgess said.

Although the sawfish’s body resembles a shark, the sawfish belongs to a class of fish called rays. Its elongated blade-like snout is used to stun and kill prey.

To expand and consolidate information on the species distribution, the existing Florida Museum of Natural History records on sawfish are being merged with a database formerly housed at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, and with the database of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Information gathered by two private sawfish enthusiasts is being added.

Data from the collections will reveal the known distribution of sawfish throughout the United States.

Burgess and a team of scientists at the Florida Museum of History on the University of Florida campus plan to use the newly expanded sawfish database to enhance a management plan developed to help speed recovery of the species.

Burgess plans to contribute new research results as he and his team monitor the abundance of sawfish and use tags to track their movements within the Indian River Lagoon and Banana River along Florida’s east coast.

This area is critical to the recovery of the once widespread species, Burgess said.

Historically, the region was full of sawfish, but the numbers fell as development encroached on their coastal habitat and encounters with humans increased.

“Sawfish get lots of ooh’s and aah’s because humans tend to gravitate to the more charismatic megafauna, as it is characterized,” he said. “We place more values on whales than their kin the field mice or the brown-eyed seal more than we do some wood rat.”

Part of the sawfish’s appeal may also be its increasing rarity, said Burgess, who estimates there are only a few thousand sawfish left in Florida.

Although the sawfish has a long life span of 30 years or more, it is a live-bearer. As such, it has a prolonged gestation period and produces very few young, he said.

Because of its unusually slow growth, late onset of sexual maturity and low reproductive potential, it will take a long time for the sawfish population to recover, Burgess said.

Anyone who sees a sawfish is asked to contact Burgess’s team at 352-392-2360 or sawfish@flmnh.ufl.edu so they can record the sighting’s location. Mapping the sawfish’s distribution is important in fine-tuning the management plan developed to protect the endangered species, he said.

More information about how to file a sawfish sighting report and what kind of details to include can be obtained from the museum’s website at www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

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Americans Rejected ‘Drill, Baby, Drill.’ Bush Should Respect Our Choice.
By Robert Redford

Part of the change Americans just voted for in overwhelming numbers was to move away from the failed energy philosophy of “drill, baby, drill” to a more farsighted strategy, emphasized by Barack Obama, based on clean, renewable energy and efficiency. Yet on the very day that we raised our voices for change, the Bush administration dragged us in the opposite direction.

The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.

As its clock runs out, the Bush administration also is trying to open-up drilling all over the Rockies and Alaska, to green-light oil shale leasing, and to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Though sad, it’s no surprise, coming as it does from the same crowd that designed a misguided national energy policy in secret meetings with the oil, gas and coal industries.

The BLM didn’t just try to slip the audacious Utah lease maneuver past the American people on an historic election day, it actually hid the ball from its sister agency, the National Park Service, and then rejected the Service’s request for more time to review the scheme.

Among the 360,000 acres to be auctioned for industrial development is pristine land near Canyonlands National Park, adjacent to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. This Christmas gift to the dirty fuel industry includes parts of Desolation Canyon, named in 1869 by the explorer John Wesley Powell, which has been proposed for national park status. In fact, the BLM itself described Desolation Canyon nine years ago as “a place where a visitor can experience true solitude — where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape.”

Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan. Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River? The thought makes one wince.

The Obama transition team already has signaled its opposition to the leases, and said that once in office the Obama administration will try to reverse them. Let’s hope that’s possible. Utah’s eastern expanse is one of America’s few remaining wilderness treasures. It’s our land, it’s our legacy, but will it still be here for our children and grandchildren? We made our wishes about that known loudly and clearly on election day.

We voted to take control of our own destiny by breaking our addiction to dirty fuels. We voted to re-power America with clean energy from wind, solar and geothermal power. We voted to use of our greatest resource, American ingenuity, to build economic, energy and climate security, and to preserve our natural heritage. Yes we did. And yes we can.

* * *

Robert Redford, an actor, director and environmental activist, is a Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and is the founder of Sundance, in Utah.

WASHINGTON, DC, October 14, 2008 (ENS) – There are now between 80 and 100 panthers in Florida, a four-fold increase over the past 25 years, federal wildlife officials said today, announcing new guidelines for human-panther interaction.

One of the rarest large mammals in the United States, the Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi, is listed as endangered under both the federal Endangered Species Act and Florida law.

Once panthers lived from eastern Texas or western Louisiana and the lower Mississippi River Valley, east through the southeastern United States including all of Florida.

Twenty-five years ago numbers fell as low as 30 animals, but recovery actions, particularly genetic augmentation initiated in 1995, enabled the population to grow to an estimated 80-100 panthers.

During this same period, the Florida human population has grown 260 percent, from about five million to nearly 18 million people. Because of increases in numbers of people and panthers, urban-suburban areas now interface with panther habitat.

This situation increases the possibility of interaction between people and panthers. Definitive guidelines and instructions were needed to maximize the best outcome for both panther conservation and public safety.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today set forth guidelines for managing potential interactions between people and Florida panthers and for educating the public about safe behavior when living in panther habitat or exploring there.

“The Service, the National Park Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are ensuring public safety by establishing protocols for responding to possible encounters between humans and panthers,” said Sam Hamilton, southeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Florida panther (Photo by lakegeorgevacations)

“At the same time, we also are trying to address the conservation needs of this critically endangered animal mainly found south of Lake Okeechobee,” he said.

Managing panther-human interaction might include outreach and education, aversive conditioning, or removal of cached panther prey.

“If a panther’s behavior indicates a high risk to human safety, it will be permanently removed from the population by captivity or euthanasia,” the Response Plan states.

Risk to humans is low if they see a panther from a distance and it retreats or displays wariness and does not approach.

The risk to humans is low to moderate if there is an unexpected direct meeting or a series of meetings over a short period between a human and a panther that exhibits nonthreatening behavior. Multiple encounters involve the same panther, which over a short period has shown no aggression nor has deliberately approached people in an area.

The risk to humans is moderate to high if the panther displays potentially threatening behavior.

Threatening behavior means that the panther does not retreat when humans take offensive/aggressive actions, or if it shows signs of curiosity including ears up, intent attention, intense staring, following or hiding behavior.

The risk factor is high if the panther crouches with tail twitching, intense staring, ears flattened, body low to the ground, head may be up. This is pre-attack behavior.

If the panther’s ears are flat, fur out, tail twitching, body and head low to ground, rear legs pumping, an attack is imminent.

The assessment advises that humans should not provoke undesirable behavior in a panther by “running away and triggering the chase behavior, not allowing the animal an escape route, or approaching an animal that is feeding or has young.”

“A panther that exhibits threatening behavior or is involved in an attack will be permanently removed from the population or destroyed,” the Response Plan states. “Public safety is the primary concern of the interagency response team.”

Relocation is an option only if the panther’s location presents a possible threat to human safety, if a male panther wanders into an urban neighborhood and cannot find its way out, for instance, or there is a threat to the survival of a panther that may enter an area containing numerous physical hazards.

Depending on specific circumstances, the panther may be captured and relocated to suitable habitat, if available, or to an approved captive facility, if necessary, the plan states.

Relocating a panther into the territory of other panthers is risky for the introduced panther, the experts say. They call it intraspecific aggression.

“Intraspecific aggression was responsible for the death of a relocated Florida panther in 2005,” states the Environmental Assessment. “This 10-month old male panther was removed from the Big Cypress National Preserve in May 2004 because it had been utilizing an area near a Native American ceremonial site. The panther was removed out of respect for the cultural and religious significance of the site to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.”

“The panther was relocated 60 miles north to a state forest. In January 2005, the relocated panther was killed by another panther.”

Based on the 2002-2003 field count of 87 panthers, the assessment states, “the existing habitat south of the Caloosahatchee River may be at carrying capacity.” As a result, no panthers are being relocated into this area.

Because appropriate human behavior is a key to coexisting with wildlife, the plan also includes guidelines for developing an outreach and education program to help people understand panther behavior and actions that should be taken when in panther habitat.

The Interagency Florida Panther Response Team includes law enforcement officers, wildlife biologists, public information officers, and other agency officials from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Operational since February 2005, the interagency team provides management guidelines that are in compliance with the scientific requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

In a related development, the Service plans to release the final version of the updated Florida Panther Recovery Plan in the Federal Register before the end of this calendar year. This plan outlines future goals and initiatives designed to stabilize and recover the population of this endangered species.

“This response plan is an outstanding result of the combined efforts of biologists and many stakeholders, who are working hard to recover the endangered Florida panther,” said Ken Haddad, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“Our strong partnership is resulting in progress towards recovery of the Florida panther and the response plan is an important part of the work that is underway,” he said.

The draft Environmental Assessment was published in May 2006 and a revised version was published in November 2007 for public comments. Comments also were solicited from the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. A peer review of the Response Plan was also conducted.

Today, the Service announced that a final Environmental Assessment for the Interagency Florida Panther Response Plan [www.fws.gov] is now available online.

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WASHINGTON, DC, September 24, 2008 (ENS) – The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing today to review the Bush administration’s record on public health and environmental matters, but it was conducted in the absence of Ranking Member Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican and former chair of the committee.

Senator Inhofe was not ill or out of town, he boycotted the hearing, and he asked the two government witnesses scheduled to honor his objection. Neither one attended the hearing nor did any of the Republican committee members.

Inhofe’s spokesman Marc Morano said this is the first time the senator has objected to an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. “Senator Inhofe’s actions were in response to the Majority’s refusal to grant a single Minority requested hearing this entire 110th Congress, despite numerous requests,” said Morano.

Senator Inhofe requested a hearing twice in writing, Morano said, to examine the “emerging questions surrounding ethanol’s effects on world food and livestock feed prices, its economic sustainability, and its transportation and infrastructure needs, its water usage, and numerous other environmental issues.”

Senator James Inhofe
(Photo courtesy EPW)

As the former chairman of the committee when the Republicans controlled the Senate before the 2006 elections, Inhofe granted three minority requests for hearings, said Morano.

A Majority staff source says that, in fact, committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer of California has agreed to hold the ethanol hearing Inhofe requested, but finding a date has been a challenge.

Other Inhofe requests for hearings have been met, according to this source, who said that on August 23, 2007, Boxer permitted Senator Inhofe to chair a hearing in Oklahoma on the Endangered Species Act and the oil industry, a hearing the Oklahoma senator had specifically requested.

Senator Inhofe requested additional hearings on Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, and they did take place as well, the source said.

Today, the Democratic senators on the committee heard from a variety of witnesses who were unanimously critical of the Bush administration’s environmental and public health record.

Witness Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, worked for the federal government for 20 years at the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior. She served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to 2001 in the Clinton administration.

“The record of the Bush administration amply demonstrates that it decided to slow-walk the listing of species under the Endangered Species Act,” Clark told the committee.

Jaguars are native to the United States.
(Photo courtesy AFGD)

“The net result of the administration’s policies has been to thwart protection for hundreds of species deserving protection under the act. Species such as jaguars, wolverines and pygmy owls have had Endangered Species Act protections denied or removed by the Bush administration on the dubious and illegal grounds that those species are found in Canada or Mexico and, consequently, protecting them in our own country is not necessary,” she said.

“The Bush administration also has hamstrung recovery of many species by making decisions based on political agendas rather than scientific data,” Clark told the committee.

“The scope and magnitude of political interference revealed by the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General and the GAO interviews is unprecedented in my experience, but no longer surprising given the unrelenting hostility the Bush administration has shown to the conservation of endangered species,” she said.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope underscored Clark’s criticism of the administration’s treatment of endangered species.

But Pope told the committee, the administration’s attempts to dismantle environmental protections have been thwarted by the checks and balances written into the U.S. Constitution.

“The good news is that little of the Bush administration’s affirmative environmental agenda has survived the challenges our system of checks and balances makes possible – Congress, the Courts, the states, and direct intervention by the public has undone most of the legal damage which the Administration sought to do,” Pope said.

“The entire edifice of administration policy on clean air lies shattered in judicial smithereens – and in its place a vigorous, state based air quality protection structure is being put in place in much, but sadly not all, of the country,” said Pope.

Oklahoma’s Muskogee power plant burns coal
and natural gas. (Photo courtesy XPDA)

“The Courts have thrown out the Bush EPA’s mercury rules and interstate transport policy and blocked its efforts to repeal the requirements that power plants be cleaned up when they are expanded or modernized,” Pope said. “During the period when the Administration’s mercury rule was on the books, more than 20 states rejected its permissive emission limits and adopted much more effective rules of their own.”

“For six years the administration sat by while oil imports increased, gas prices rose and global warming became more and more threatening,” said Pope. “It refused to set higher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles even when the data showed that the current trajectory was actually hurting the U.S. auto industry, desiccating its market share.”

“But California acted on its own, and other states virtually stampeded to follow it,” Pope said.

“While EPA has yet to issue the needed waiver for those standards to take effect, that matter is before the Courts, and perhaps more important, both candidates for president have pledged that they will allow California and the 13 other states which have joined it to act on their own,” he said.

Reverend Jim Ball, president and chief executive of the Evangelical Environmental Network, quoted Scripture to the committee, but he also exhorted the members to rely on science.

President George W. Bush addresses a
news conference at the White House.
(Photo by Joyce Boghosian courtesy
the White House)

“Take lead as an example,” said Ball. “As the best scientific evidence demonstrates, it clearly causes harm to children, a vulnerable group within our society over whom we have power. As the most current evidence and analysis by both the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the EPA’s staff scientists suggests, the current standard set in 1978 is clearly outdated and should be strengthened or improved.

“My hope is that when the EPA issues their final ruling in mid-October the EPA Administrator will abide by the unanimous recommendations of the EPA’s own scientific panel as well as his scientific staff,” Ball said.

He also urged more regulation for mercury and for climate-warming greenhouse gases.

“On June 7, 2007, I and other religious community colleagues testified before you on the dangers climate changes poses, especially to the poor, and the ethical reasons for action. The situation is even more urgent now than it was then,” Ball said. “Given the current state of our efforts at the federal level, this represents a tremendous opportunity for the next Congress and administration to do better.”

Senator Barbara Boxer (Photo
courtesy EPW)

Perhaps the strongest criticism of the Bush environmental record came from Chairman Boxer in her opening statement, which cited reports from the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, GAO.

“According to a recent GAO report prepared at my request,” Boxer said, “EPA political officials worked with the White House and the Pentagon to undermine the process for evaluating toxic chemical risks.”

“EPA has severely weakened its Office of Children’s Health Protection and largely ignored its Children’s Health Advisory Committee, as we learned from GAO just last week,” said Boxer.

“EPA’s record on global warming could hardly be worse,” she said. “Despite the president’s campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, the White House reversed course and rejected actions to control global warming pollution.”

“In one of its first official acts, the Bush EPA announced that it was suspending the newly strengthened standard for arsenic in tap water. After a public outcry and legislation blocking it, EPA finally retreated,” she said.

The EPA story is the same for soot, smog, and lead standards – all weaker than its own scientists recommended, Boxer said.

“EPA has slowed down its Superfund program to practically a crawl,” Boxer said. “Over the last seven years, the pace of Superfund cleanups has dropped by about 50 percent compared to the last seven years of the prior administration, from about 80 cleanups per year to 40 or less.”

“We just learned that EPA has decided that it will not set a health standard for the toxic rocket fuel perchlorate in our drinking water, even though EPA data show that up to 16.6 million people are exposed to unsafe levels,” said Boxer. “Perchlorate is especially risky for infants and children, because it interferes with their thyroid, which controls normal development.”

“On occasion, EPA has taken a positive step, including the issuance of cleanup orders to the Department of Defense, though more work is needed to ensure DOD follows through,” Boxer said. “Unfortunately, the Bush record of rollbacks overshadows these efforts.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, September 11, 2008 (ENS) – Today, the Bush administration announced that it would extend the comment period on a proposed rule that conservationists claim would weaken the Endangered Species Act.

Last month, more than 100 citizens groups asked the administration for adequate time to respond to the proposal that would change the conservation law by removing the requirement that federal agencies consult with wildlife experts before undertaking activities that might jeopardize the survival of species listed as endangered or threatened under the act.

The proposed regulatory changes were published in the Federal Register August 15, while Congress was out for recess and many Americans were on summer holiday.

The administration initially announced a 30 day public comment period but has now extended it for another 30 days, until October 15. The citizens groups had sought a 120 day comment period and a series of public field hearings.

The administration still refuses to accept e-mail or faxed comments or hold public hearings on the proposed rule. Instead, comments will be accepted only by mail, or through a government website that warns reviewers their personal information will be posted on the Internet in a file open to the public.

The rule is one in a series of proposed regulatory changes to the Endangered Species Act released by the Bush administration in the past several months that conservationists have labeled the “Bush Extinction Plan.” The administration also has proposed rules that would make changes in the way endangered species are listed and the way their habitat is protected.

“We welcome the additional time to oppose the Bush Extinction Plan and demonstrate the vast public support for the Endangered Species Act,” said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition.

“The American public will not stand for such an underhanded attempt by this lame duck administration to weaken protections for our nation’s wildlife and wild lands,” she said.

“The existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts and delays,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, announcing the proposed rule in August. He told reporters the proposal aims to bring the Endangered Species Act “into the 21st century.”

This lynx photographed in the Vermont woods
is federally listed as a threatened species
and listed by Vermont as endangered.
(Photo courtesy Vermont FWD)

Under the proposed revisions, federal agencies would be permitted to bypass the consultation process if they believe their actions would cause little harm to listed species. If an agency chooses to skip consultation, it would be responsible for any subsequent harm caused to the species in question.

“The proposed regulations will continue to protect species while focusing the consultation process on those federal actions where potential impacts can be linked to the action and the risks are reasonably certain to occur,” Kempthorne said. “The result should be a process that is less time-consuming and a more effective use of our resources.”

“The Bush administration is attempting a last minute giveaway to their friends in the oil, mining, logging and development industries,” said Huta. “The proposed regulatory changes came out in the 11th hour of the Bush administration. They are trying every trick in the book to rewrite bedrock environmental protections.”

Last month, 105 conservation and scientific organizations representing millions of Americans submitted a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez calling for increased transparency and opportunities for public participation on the new proposal.

Organized by the Endangered Species Coalition, the letter urged the administration to allow the public adequate time to address the breadth and depth that these changes would have on protecting imperiled wildlife.

“The Endangered Species Act is a safety net for our nation’s wildlife, fish and plants on the brink of extinction,” said Jon Hunter, policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition. “The Bush administration’s proposed regulations will cut a giant loophole in the safety net.”

To read a copy of the proposal, entitled “Interagency Cooperation Under the Endangered Species Act” and submit a comment, click here [www.regulations.gov].

Another rule change proposed by the Bush administration in August narrowly defines the geographic area where a species is listed for purposes of the Act. This change could be interpreted to limit protection of endangered species to their current range, not their historic range.

If a species is doing well in one small area but is extinct in the rest of its range, it could be denied listing under the act, conservation groups say, while at the same time, pests, disease, or habitat destruction could quickly wipe out a small remaining population.

This proposed rule change, entitled “Amending the Formats of the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants,” was published in the Federal Register [www.epa.gov] on August 5, where comment instructions are given. Public comments are due by September 4, and again, e-mail and faxes will not be accepted.

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WASHINGTON, DC, August 21, 2008 (ENS) – Saying the Bush administration’s most recent Endangered Species Act rulemaking is “anti-democratic,” 104 conservation and scientific organizations today submitted a letter to Cabinet officials calling for increased transparency and opportunities for public participation.

The new rule published in the Federal Register last week would change the way the Endangered Species Act is administered concerning both land and marine species.

The groups say the rule would “radically weaken” the Endangered Species Act yet only 30 days have been allowed for public comment and the public comment process has been restricted in other ways as well.

Their letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez requests an extension of the comment period to 120 days.

The groups say a longer comment period would allow the public adequate time “to address the breadth and depth that these changes to the Endangered Species Act regulations will have on protecting our most imperiled wildlife.”

The rule would, for the first time, give federal agencies the authority to decide without expert consultation whether their activities such as logging, mining or roadbuilding could harm endangered and threatened species. It also would prohibit consideration of the impacts of global warming on wildlife.

The rule states, “These regulations would reinforce the Services’ current view that there is no requirement to consult on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions’ contribution to global warming and its associated impacts on listed species (e.g., polar bears).”

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform
for hunting seals, their main food source.
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

Earlier this year, Secretary Kempthorne added the polar bear to the federal endangered species list, classifying it as Threatened. But he qualified the listing with a requirement that it cannot be used to limit greenhouse gas emissions although it is the warming climate that is destroying the sea ice needed for polar bear survival.

Administration officials maintain the proposed rule is a minor change that would make the law easier to implement, but the conservation groups say the rule is a fundamental change in the law.

“Rather than a narrow tweaking of the regulations, the proposal represents a back-door attack on the Endangered Species Act,” said Leda Huta, director of the Endangered Species Coalition, a national network of hundreds of conservation, scientific, sporting, religious, humane, business and community groups.

“The American people deserve and expect a full public process to vet such far-reaching changes to this landmark conservation law,” Huta said.

The administration is refusing to accept e-mail comments or hold public hearings on the proposed rule.

Instead, comments will be accepted by postal mail, or through a government website that warns reviewers their personal information will be posted on the Internet for public dissemination.

“It appears as if the administration is doing whatever it can to discourage participation in the democratic process,” said John Kostyack, of the National Wildlife Federation. “I think we can expect more sneaky assaults like this on our public land and wildlife laws as this administration heads for the exits.”

The proposed regulatory changes were published on August 15, while Congress was out for recess and many Americans were enjoying the summer holiday.

The groups warn that the abbreviated timeline and restrictive commenting options raise serious concerns that the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce is attempting to rewrite a bedrock environmental statute without allowing for adequate public involvement.

Sean Cosgrove with the Conservation Law Foundation said today, “For one of our nation’s most important and successful environmental laws, the 30 day comment period is woefully inadequate for the public to review and comment on this critical proposal.”

“The Bush administration proposal eliminates the critical checks and balances needed to protect imperiled birds and cuts species experts from the process of making decisions that need to be science-based,” said Mike Daulton, with National Audubon Society, a bird conservation organization.

“The Endangered Species Act is a safety net for our nation’s wildlife, fish and plants on the brink of extinction, said Bill Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Bush administration’s proposed regulations will cut a giant loophole in the safety net.”

Susan Holmes of Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, said, “Animals on the brink of extinction need consideration and protection guided by the best experts in the federal government – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service biologists.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, August 12, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration has proposed sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act, releasing a plan to give federal agencies the authority to decide without expert consultation whether their activities could harm endangered and threatened species. Administration officials contend the proposal will make the law easier to implement, but critics say the plan would undermine federal protection of imperiled plants and animals.

Announced Monday by the head of the U.S. Interior Department, the proposed changes would relax the current requirement that federal agencies consult with federal wildlife experts to ensure activities they undertake or approve – such as logging, mining and road construction – do not adversely affect listed species.

Endangered southern sea otters at
play in Morro Bay, California
(Photo by Carol DiNolfo)

Thousands of such consultations occur each year, but the administration argues they are not worth the hassle.

“The existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts and delays,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who told reporters the proposal aims to bring the Endangered Species Act “into the 21st century.”

Under the proposed revisions, federal agencies would be permitted to bypass the consultation process if they believe the action in question would cause little harm to listed species. If an agency chooses to skip consultation, it would be responsible for any subsequent harm caused to the species in question.

The plan also imposes new deadlines on federal wildlife agencies to respond to a request for consultation, requiring a response within 60 days. If they fail to respond within that timeframe, the project in question may proceed without their analysis.

“The proposed regulations will continue to protect species while focusing the consultation process on those federal actions where potential impacts can be linked to the action and the risks are reasonably certain to occur,” Kempthorne said. “The result should be a process that is less time-consuming and a more effective use of our resources.”

The proposal is in part driven by the administration’s concern about the potential use of the Endangered Species Act to force limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Polar bears in the Alaskan Arctic
(Photo by Jesse Harris courtesy
USFWS)

In May, the Interior chief reluctantly listed the polar bear as threatened, citing evidence that global warming is melting Arctic sea ice and putting the ice-dependent bears at risk.

Such a listing could force federal agencies to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions of their activities on polar bear habitat, something the Bush administration opposes. When announcing the polar bear decision, Kempthorne suggested he would take steps to ensure that concern is eliminated – something the new proposal addresses.

“It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species,” Kempthorne told reporters Monday, adding that concerns about global warming should be tackled by new national legislation and international agreements.

Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, called the proposal a “positive step forward.”

The existing consultation requirements were developed more than 20 years ago, he said, and federal agencies now have far more expertise to determine whether their activities imperil listed species.

The proposal would “reduce ambiguity, improve consistency, and narrow interpretive differences,” Hall explained.

Environmentalists and congressional Democrats are far from convinced.

“With these changes, the Bush administration threatens to undo more than 30 years of progress,” said John Kostyack, a senior official with the National Wildlife Federation, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups.

Kostyack and other critics contend federal agencies do not have the expertise to assess the impacts of their activities on endangered species – and little interest in ensuring species are protected.

“These changes take unbiased, professional wildlife biologists out of the equation and put decisions in the hands of political appointees,” he said.

Top Democrats offered similar reactions.

The proposal “gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act,” said Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat and chair of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Endangered juvenile Kirtland’s
warbler in Wisconsin (Photo courtesy
USFWS)

The new plan is part of a larger effort by the Bush administration and some Republicans in Congress to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, which they contend is in dire need of reform.

But to date their attempts to revise the law have failed. A federal court struck down a 2004 Bush administration rule that sought to expedite approval of pesticides by revising the consultation process, and a Republican-led House bill reforming the law died in the Senate in 2005.

And last year the Bush administration became embroiled in controversy over alleged political meddling with Endangered Species Act decisions, forcing the resignation of top Interior Department official Julie MacDonald and the review of several endangered species decisions she made.

Critics say the administration has little interest in enforcing the law and is keen to relax endangered species protections in a bid to please homebuilders as well as mining and logging interests.

The new plan “repeats and includes all of the disdain for science and political trumping of expertise that has characterized previous Bush administration efforts to dismantle fundamental environmental laws,” said Sierra Club President Carl Pope.

Kempthorne said such opposition to the plan was hardly surprising.

“There will always be criticism any time you suggest changes to the Endangered Species Act,” he told reporters.

The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposal. The Interior Department will publish a notice of the plan in the Federal Register either late this week or early next week, says DOI spokesman Frank Quinby. Information on how to submit comments will be included in that notice.

By J.R. Pegg

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MISSOULA, Montana, July 21, 2008 (ENS) – A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction restoring gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains to the endangered species list and halting the indiscrimate killing of wolves for the duration of a trial in which conservationist plaintiffs contest the removal of the wolves from the protected list.

The case involves 12 plaintiff conservation organizations against defendant U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the governments of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and livestock and trophy hunting organizations that have intervened on the side of the government.

Dozens of wolves have been shot since March 28, 2008, when wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and parts of Oregon, Washington and Washington lost the protections of the Endangered Species Act.

In his order granting the injunction handed down on Friday, Judge Molloy wrote, “This case, like a cloud larger than a man’s hand, will hang over the northwest states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming until there has been a final determination of the complex issues presented. Those issues must be answered in accordance with the intent of Congress as stated in the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations.”

Wolf in Yellowstone National Park
(Photo by Tut99)

In order to be granted the injunction, plaintiff groups had to demonstrate to Federal Judge Donald Molloy that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, and that irreparable injury was occuring to the wolves during adjudication of the case.

The judge ruled that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the majority of the claims relied upon in their request for a preliminary injunction.

“In particular,” wrote Judge Molloy, “(1) the Fish & Wildlife Service acted arbitrarily in delisting the wolf despite a lack of evidence of genetic exchange between subpopulations; and (2) it acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it approved Wyoming’s 2007 plan despite the State’s failure to commit to managing for 15 breeding pairs and the plan’s malleable trophy game area. In both instances, the Fish & Wildlife Service altered its earlier position without providing a reasoned decision for the change.”

“The wolf slaughter is halted,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re elated. This injunction will give the wolves a fighting chance.”

“Recovery requires allowing wolves in different populations to reach each other in order to mate and raise their pups,” said Robinson. “Even before they were unlawfully removed from the endangered species list, the government was gunning down so many wolves that the Yellowstone population was reproductively isolated, a recipe for extinction.”

Gray wolves were exterminated from the western United States by the Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agencies between 1915 and 1945, on behalf of the livestock industry.

Passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 led to placement of wolves on the endangered species list, development of a recovery plan, and reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains in 1995.

Suzanne Asha Stone, northern Rockies wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife, said, “The delisting of wolves was inappropriate and illegal in large part because existing state management plans are inadequate to ensure the long term conservation of wolves in the region, allowing far too many wolves to be unnecessarily killed.”

“Responsible, balanced management by the states would benefit wolves, ranchers, hunters and all Northern Rockies residents,” said Stone. “While the court continues to weigh our challenge to the delisting decision, we will continue to work to improve the current state plans so that they maintain a healthy wolf population.”

The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Wildlands Project.

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SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 2, 2008 (ENS) – Three conservation groups filed a formal petition today asking the federal government to protect areas on the main Hawaiian islands as critical habitat for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal under the Endangered Species Act.

As monk seal populations plummet on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the main islands are playing an increasingly important role in the conservation of the species, the groups say.

The petition, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, and Ocean Conservancy, seeks to have beaches and surrounding waters on the main Hawaiian islands designated as critical habitat to better protect this unique monk seal.

Hawaiian monk seal (Photo
courtesy NOAA)

Currently, the species has critical habitat designated only on the northwestern islands, a 1,400 mile-long chain of small islands and atolls northwest of the main islands that are protected as the country’s only national marine monument.

Still, the monk seals in the northwestern islands are dying of starvation, emaciated and weak, scientists have found. Pups have only about a one-in-five chance of surviving to adulthood. Other threats include drowning in abandoned fishing gear, shark predation, and disease.

“Habitat in the main Hawaiian islands is essential to the survival of the monk seals,” said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity and author of the petition. “Critical habitat protection could be the best chance of recovery for these struggling seals.”

Hawaiian monk seals are one of three species of monk seals. The Mediterranean monk seal is also critically endangered, while the Caribbean monk seal, which has not been seen in half a century, was declared extinct in June.

The Hawaiian monk seal is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. Since the 1950s its population has dropped to about 1,300 animals and will likely drop below 1,000 seals within a few years, scientists say.

“Saving the Hawaiian monk seal is not just about saving a species, but perpetuating the unique culture that has flourished around it,” said Marti Townsend, program director at KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance.

“Designating additional critical habitat for the last remaining monk seals is crucial to ensuring this uniquely Hawaiian species is not de-listed because it is extinct, but rather because it has survived the harms of humanity’s excesses,” Townsend said.

Hawaiian monk seals are increasingly populating the main islands, where they are giving birth to healthy pups. For the past decade, the number of Hawaiian monk seal births has increased each year on the main islands, and the population of seals is growing steadily; the seals are in better condition than those in the northwestern islands. This indicates more food availability and a better chance of survival.

But monk seals on the main islands are threatened by disturbance, development, disease, and entanglement in fishing gear.

Diver attempts to rescue a
Hawaiian monk seal that is entangled
in derelict fishing gear. (Photo
courtesy NOAA)

“Designating critical habitat in the main Hawaiian islands would protect against federal actions that could threaten monk seal survival. If we don’t act soon we stand to lose forever this treasured part of Hawaii’s natural heritage,” said Vicki Cornish of Ocean Conservancy. “Preventing the extinction of the Hawaiian monk seal needs to become a national priority.”

Global warming is also a threat to the survival of Hawaiian monk seals.

Already, the conservation groups warn, important pupping beaches have been lost due to sea-level rise and erosion, and the northwestern islands will eventually disappear under predicted levels of sea-level rise since they are elevated only a few meters above sea level. The higher-elevation main islands are less vulnerable to sea-level rise.

Under the Endangered Species Act, critical habitat identifies geographic areas that contain features essential for the conservation of a threatened or endangered species and may require special management considerations.

The designation of critical habitat does not affect land ownership or establish a refuge, wilderness, reserve, preserve, or other conservation area. It does not allow government or public access to private lands.

Recent studies have shown that species with critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as species without it.

But the Bush administration has been resistant to protecting critical habitat and has most often done so as the result of a lawsuit brought by conservation groups..

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appends a blanket statement regarding critical habitat to many of its press releases, stating, “In 30 years of implementing the Endangered Species Act, the Service has found that the designation of critical habitat provides little additional protection to most listed species, while preventing the Service from using scarce conservation resources for activities with greater conservation benefits. In almost all cases, recovery of listed species will come through voluntary cooperative partnerships, not regulatory measures such as critical habitat.”

The Endangered Species Act requires that the government respond to this petition within 90 days.

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