Conservatives are trying to gut the Endagered Species Act

[Quetzal]

Sucker Punch

How conservatives are trying to use a conflict over obscure fish to gut the science behind the Endangered Species Act.
By Chris Mooney
STRETCHING FROM SOUTHERN OREGON through northern California to the Pacific, the Klamath River Basin is home to several different endangered or threatened fish, one group of angry farmers, and a burgeoning legal movement that threatens the most important environmental law in the country.

Water management issues in the Klamath region have long been contentious, and they came to a head during a drought in 2001. In the face of severe shortages in the basin, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation held back irrigation water usually channeled to more than 200,000 acres of agricultural land in order to protect a silver-bellied bottom-dwelling fish called the shortnose sucker, the related Lost River sucker, and a genetically distinct variety of the coho salmon. This marked the first time the Endangered Species Act has triggered the massive cutoff of water from a federal reclamation project. The move left many farmers devastated, some even bankrupt, and triggered intense anger over the government's decision to elevate the concerns of ichthyoids over those of human beings. At one point, a hundred Klamath irrigators engaged in civil disobedience, breaking through a chain-link fence to throw open a water valve. Some environmental activists involved in the Klamath dispute received death threats.

Angry landowners, obscure species—this may sound like a typical Endangered Species Act dispute. But since the 2001 crisis, the Klamath battle has taken a new turn. At the request of the Department of the Interior, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences recently completed a two-part scientific review of the Reclamation Bureau's decision, concluding that, in some respects, there wasn't clear scientific evidence that withholding water would help the fish.

more...

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2004/argument_mooney_mayjun04.html

[Zinfandel]

1. That's their plan, to gut and make sure every progressive program in place

is under funded.

From Social Security to education to environmental protections to regulating corporations abuses and gouging.

Use the excuse that the money to fund these programs, that were so hard fought for by progressives for over thirty years, is going to "homeland security" and to fight "terrorism" abroad (Afghanistan-Iraq) and there's no money left "unfortunately" to fund these programs, the greedy republicans and corporations despise these programs as stifling them and it's taking money out of their already overflowing pockets.

Yet there's always plenty of money for Halliburton, the weapons makers like the Carlyle Group, General Electric, etc. Now Bush wants billions more of our tax dollars to spend and give to his corporate donors, while programs at home are terribly under funded and made completely ineffective (the EPA is another one).

The republicans will NEVER be accused of getting rid of any of these progressive programs and agencies completely...However they will purposely underfund them, through use of FEAR (which is their plan, of never ending wars and keep these programs around in name only).

One agency they do keep well funded is the FCC. So they can continue to wave a carrot over the corporate media conglomerates heads, so they play ball and do pretty much as the WH demands. Basically, by never reporting stories, or killing stories as they progress, edit Bush to make him sound like he knows what the fuck he's talking about (which must be an overwhelming task) and become cheerleaders for Bush under Rove's direction...

After all it's not in the republican owned corporate media's interest to tell us the truth.

[baby_bear]

2. Here's another good analysis, a bit different (Tim Egan NYT)

Egan is a great writer of the West.

Shift on Salmon Reignites Fight on Species Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/national/09SALM.html

<snip>
By TIMOTHY EGAN

Published: May 9, 2004


SEATTLE, May 8 — Three years ago, Mark C. Rutzick was the timber industry's top lawyer trying to overturn fish and wildlife protections that loggers viewed as overly restrictive. Back then, he outlined to his clients a new strategy for dealing with diminishing salmon runs. By counting hatchery fish along with wild salmon, the government would help the timber industry by getting salmon off the endangered species list, Mr. Rutzick wrote.

Now, as a high-ranking political appointee in the Bush administration who is a legal adviser to the National Marine Fisheries Service, Mr. Rutzick is helping to shape government policy on endangered Pacific salmon. And in an abrupt change, the Bush administration has decided for the first time to consider counting fish raised in hatcheries when determining if some species are going extinct.

The new plan, which officials have said is expected to be formally announced at the end of the month, closely follows the position that Mr. Rutzick advocated when he represented the timber industry.


The policy shift has caused a furor among some members of the scientific community and has touched off a fresh battle over what may be the nation's most powerful environmental law.

To most biologists, salmon that are born and raised in a cement tank are no replacement for wild fish, even if they share a common genetic makeup. The new approach, which was contained in a single-page draft, dated March 25 and leaked to reporters last month, ignores the findings of the Bush administration's own panel of outside scientific experts, as well as long-held views within the fisheries service.
</snip>

There's much more. It's a good read. This has to be stopped before it is literally too late.

s_m

[AbsolutMauser]

3. Most important environmental law?

Really? The ESA?

What about the Clean Air Act, water pollution laws, and hazardous waste regulation?

~AbM

[blindpig]

4. what ever happened to the 'conserve' in conservative?

They have strayed far from the memory of Teddy Roosevelt. Utterly dishonest, thoroughly greedy and without principles, shameless in their hypocrisy. They pervert religion and science at a whim and play upon the base emotions of the masses to increase their power and the next quarters profits. A pox on them and theirs.