"For more than three decades, the Endangered Species Act has successfully protected our nation's most threatened wildlife, and we should be looking for ways to improve it - not weaken it" - Barack Obama.
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If this has already been diaried, I will delete this. But if not, this is worth pointing out.
Obama is set to instruct federal agencies to once again consult with endangered-species rules before moving ahead with construction projects. This overrules one of Bush's more egregious, kleptocratic, last-minute rule changes - Bush's unchecked gift to business and industry lobbyists.
The L.A. Times reports that,
Obama will issue the decision in a presidential memorandum, effectively bypassing the lengthy public comment process traditionally required for changing a rule
and
Bush's rule change, finalized in December, allowed federal agencies to determine on their own if projects would jeopardize endangered species, instead of consulting with expert biologists as previously required. It also gave agencies the option, if they chose, of calling on the experts from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Obama's memo will direct the agencies to exercise that option in every instance, until the Interior and Commerce Departments can reconsider the Bush rule change. It does not explicitly overturn the Bush rule. Lobbying groups are debating the memo's legality.
The move is Obama's latest step toward reversing Bush's environmental policies.
Of course, some of the lobbyists, with their allies now no longer running DC, are whining.
"It's almost certainly going to slow down all of these projects, even the stimulus-backed projects," said Ross Eisenberg, an environment and energy counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "What we're getting is more red tape."
And, while I am sure that these business lobbyists plan to fight this in court, the fact that Bush, to their greedy applause, in the 11th hour, nonchalantly reversed 30 plus years of sound environmental policy is a disgrace. Barack Obama surely recognized that this was, and he is to be commended for keeping this campaign promise to us, or at least, in this instance, starting the process of doing so. Kudos to him for that.