California Sues Bush Administration To Save Endangered Species Act

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California is suing the Bush administration to block last-minute endangered species regulations that are intended to reduce input from federal scientists, state Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Tuesday.

Brown said the president is trying to gut the Endangered Species Act before he leaves office next month.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science," Brown said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "This is the latest assault as Bush goes out the door. It's intolerable."

The lawsuit was filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The Interior Department issued the revised rules this month. They allow federal agencies to issue permits for mining, logging and similar activities without getting a review from federal wildlife biologists if their own research shows the project will not affect plants and animals.

The changes also block agencies from using the Endangered Species Act to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on ecosystems when reviewing projects such as new roads or coal plants on federal land.

Interior Department spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said the revised rules will continue to protect threatened and endangered species and noted that the law says federal agencies will ensure no listed animals are killed.

The lawsuit also names the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service as defendants.

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Brown is asking the court to block the new rules, which could give the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama time to review them.

Obama has said he would work to reverse the changes. Because they take effect before he is sworn in, Obama would have to restart a lengthy rule-making process that could last up to a year.

Three environmental groups also have filed lawsuits challenging the revisions, which they say erode protections for endangered species.

Current rules require biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to sign off on dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects even when it is determined they are not likely to harm species.

The revised rules will reduce the independent reviews that government scientists have performed for 35 years. The idea is to accelerate a process that developers and other federal agencies have blamed for delays and cost increases.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations for projects proposed for federal land. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

California's lawsuit alleges that the Department of Interior failed to adequately consider public comments critical of the revisions before it finalized the rules.

California is home to 310 plant and animal species listed as endangered or threatened by the federal government, more than any state except Hawaii, according to the complaint.

Comments

[jcollell]

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science," Yup, they sure do. It is about time that somebody slaps them around.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science,"

[doublels]

Gosh...why would you want to use "sound science" when you have "God" talking to you? And his good buddies in the oil industry talking to you? We're so silly!!
You are so right Sue!!
Go Jerry...always loved you, always will.

[bluesvues]

Couldn't help but tell you, Doublels, that you made me smile. Thanks!

[sueinmn]

Executive orders by outgoing Presidents should be written out of law. This is just crap from the crappiest pres in history! 8 years of his bullcrap and ruining the economy and all the outsourcing on his watch is very sad. I am still baffled how he was re elected to begin with. He should have been impeached years ago! I sure hope GOP voters have seens the light and continue to do so.

[bluesvues]

I agree. But GOP voters in the state I live in still love and revere Bush/Cheney as heroes - and is the reddest of the red states. Yep. Had one tell me that very thing the other night. Thought my husband was going to faint! And how about the guy running to be RNC chairman? Now there's a unique sort of fellow...he should stay out of the CD production business.

[sueinmn]

wow are they mostly rich? I cant imagine average workers having any good feelings. wages keep getting lower and jobs get fewer, pensions a thing of the past and were just really in a bad way these years.

[bluesvues]

Jerry Brown...still being the Change he wishes to see in the world. Let's stand up with him and co-create a different kind of world from the one that the neo-libs/cons keep trying to push us into: one with the few with much and the many with nothing. Peace. Stand up, or sit down and do as you're told.

[outmost1]

umm...don't the neo-libs want everything the neo-cons have to be shared with everyone else?
I know its hard to keep everything straight, what with the whole memory and thinking thing involved. Good try though, you have a useful sentiment there lets "co-create a different kind of world"
You can sit down now.

[swiss-ski]

Jerry's still upset over his breakup with Linda Ronstadt. Jerry, go blame Arny (your Gov) for the problems of California. After all Arnold is really a liberal and everyone know it.

[bluesvues]

The 'reasoned' comments concerning a serious subject, of course, are always appreciated. I continue to wonder why we, as 'citizens' rather than 'consumers' always are able to be 'trained' into believing that labels truly define anything. If one goes by your definition, I imagine, then President Bush is a 'Tax and Spend Liberal' - we've been hit with more hidden taxes than I'm willing to be your research shows. And I don't even have to list the spending he's managed to done. Going from a surplus upon entering office, he was able, quite handily, to run up the biggest debt/deficit in the history of the world.

I doubt you know much about Jerry Brown or the policies he utilized whilst in office -so then, of course, referring to a decades old soundbite is probably all that is known. Works on the Rush Limbaugh show of course.

Peace. Do the research.

[newpantaloons]

Good for Jerry Brown, and all the other environmental groups that filed suit against this rule change at the last minute. I live in a small town in the mountains of Colorado. We, as all areas of the U. S., have experienced population growth over the last two decades. Because of this population growth, a local sage grouse has been pushed off it's historical breeding grounds (called leks). This has pushed IT'S POPULATION to dangerously low numbers. The scientists in the state pushed for inclusion into the Endangered Species classification. A Bush appointee, Julia McDonald, decided against listing the bird as endangered, even though many scientists and biologists had urged the classification. Here is a reading from a report on Julia McDonald:

"According to a newly-released report from Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney, MacDonald successfully "tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years" and even exceeded expectations by "exert[ing] improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought."

"MacDonald, a civil engineer with a master"s degree in management, resigned from her post in May of 2007 amid accusations that she"d "violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."

This "appointee" from the man making these last minute rule changes!

[funinthesun]

This is why Jerry Brown is going to be the next Governor of California. BROWN in 2010 !

[GrayOwl]

Could he run again? Or is he term-limited out? Is the law written to prohibit more than two terms, or more than two consecutive terms?

[shockmagog]

Two consecutive terms, yes. Apparently, there's nothing that says a former California governor cannot run again after being out of office.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Governor

Story on the ex-Governor considering running again:

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/017655.html

[DeniseD]

I am not certain of this. I was young when he was governor, but I don't think he was a bad governor. In fact, I remember being kind of fond of him.

[Phalanxman]

Good for Jerry Brown, and thank God for the 9th District.

[Harrier]

The President is completely mad!

[SparkyDash]

Rock on, Jerry Brown! Thank you so much.

[sleeperd]

Class warfare is winning.

The tax-em-till-they-leave democraps in league with their wealthy effete snobs of the enviro-whacko cult are in the process of eliminating the middle-class in Calif.

No working-class average joe will be able to afford to live there in the near future but then again, maybe they won't want to.

[TMAN]

You might want to move to that paragon of Republican values: no regulation, anything goes state of Tennesee, heard they just did some real fine "terraforming" of new land to be "developed"

[shockmagog]

Where will your mythical Joe the Plumber go? As goes California, so goes the rest of the nation.

"Class warfare is winning."

Yes it has been winning: the class warfare waged by the Republican party, since Reagan, against working class Americans. As the Republicans continue to diminish in power, their power to k.i.l.l the Middle Class will also diminish.

I sincerely doubt you make enough money to benefit from anything the Republican party has to offer.

[doublels]

Yep, you got 'em. All the key words...effete, snobs, enviro-whacko, cult. Not an original thought of your own. If you want to use the words "destroying the middle class" or "cult" , use them for your boys. The rich Republican white guy who could not care less about the middle or lower class. As is always with you folk (Rushites, Bushites, Cheneyites, etc...you have it all bass-ackwards.

[stephanemot]

You want to be careful with the last throes the ultra-conservative insurgents who attacked American values from the inside.

[ashabot]

Good for California. Now, how about the other states?

[Kassandra]

Good for Brown and all courageous people who have finally risen up to confront these "people"!

[realpolitic]

Bush ruined America's standing in the world, ruined the economy, but he won't be satisfied until he ruins our beautiful landscapes. If there is an anti-Mount Rushmore, with the faces of the worst presidents on it, Bush should be placed there first and most prominently.

[apriljeff]

Actually, the economy was fine till the dems took control 2 years ago.

[bluesvues]

Do you truly believe that? Do you truly think that it only takes days to change an economy? After eight years of concerted effort to put the money into the hands of a few (which, in case you haven't noticed, is still where it is and continues to flow to) and take it from those who have less; and making us all believe that it's our fault somehow (those 'bad' unamerican unpatriotic consumers - how dare they want a living wage!) With all due respect, spouting platitudes and soundbites is what many folks are 'trained' to do. Do your own research. Take some time and really know what's going on.

Peace. At the end of the day, it's about us...and knowing what's really going on.