Obama Worse Than Bush On Endangered Species Protection

The Examiner:

Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar's appointment by President Obama has been controversial from the beginning. His record on environmental and wildlife preservation efforts, have been questioned by many conservationist groups. Salazar was praised for voiding oil and gas drilling leases on public land in Utah, but he was also criticized for what some biologists believe to be the premature delisting of gray wolves previously protected under the ESA.

For a Secretary of Interior to manage public lands without also managing its wild inhabitants is not altruistic or unbiased. The Secretary cannot pick and chose which environmental laws to follow and which ones to sweep under the rug, as did Gale Norton, when she was appointed Secretary of Interior by George W. Bush.

Read the whole story: The Examiner

Comments

[freelyb]

Lord, after reading these comments, I am thinking that humans should be allowed to go extinct. What warped and anthropocentric perspectives most of you have. We have no more inherent right to life than anything else on the planet. Such sickening self-interest will ironically kill us all...and probably sooner than later. Thanks for that, you id iots.

[BlueSkyPilot]

I'm still waiting for the headline:
Barrack Obama has stepped up the job and is showing that he has much bite as bark!

[simplify]

This afternoon President Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, one of the most sweeping pieces of conservation and public land management legislation in years.
I suppose this legislation means nothing

[simplify]

Thats probably the most misleading headline I have seen here

[winstonian22]

Obama is the single greatest engine behind a conservative resurrection in 2012. Thank you very much.

[alice09]

I always felt this appointment was a bad one. And it's proven to be true.
He should go. He's a corporatio­n-industry guy, not and environmentalist or naturalist.
And what's with the hat?

[Da-king]

Yawn next topic.

[AnimalLover6]

Thank you for this article. Obama's administration, so far, has laid a miserable track record on the environment--from his blathering about "clean coal," to his appointment of Ken Salazar (every rancher's friend) as Secretary of the Interior. His EPA pick, Lisa Jackson, isn't much better. NONE of these people operate within a new paradigm of thinking. The most that they offer is to move the pieces a tiny bit differently in the same game. How difficult could it have been for Obama to say "No" to the clear-cutting of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska? To say "No" to mountaintop removal in West Virginia. To direct Salazar to put a stop to the indiscriminate shooting of wolves? To direct Jackson to cease the poisoning of prairies dogs (and the land) in Colorado? None of these actions required either massive shifts in policy or dealing with Congress. Yet, here we are. One year later, and we have a President--yet again--who has no understanding of a "land ethic." None. Zip. Same old, same old.

[terragazelle60]

You are nuts. Last I heard there is no more Mountaintop removal, the clear cuttinbg has stopped in Alaska, shooting of Wolves has also stopped... the president is doing all he can to stop the poluting of our world,... if you are going to complain why not make sure of your facts?

Obviously you have not paid any attention to the hearings when Salazar testified on what was going on. There are no longer snow mobils allowed in places like Yellowstone...nor are roads being allowed to be built in the national forests. Pay attention.

[AnimalLover6]

My response to you was not posted. But you can simply look up "Obama" + "mountaintop removal" or "Obama" + "Tongass."

[naschkatze]

I don't know about the others, but mountaintop removal mining has NOT stopped.

[blueskybigstar]

I like Obama, but it is hard to be loyal when so many of his actions don't make sense.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/217458

There is something wrong in the state of Denmark. Here are examples of the things that Obama has to deal with:

Read Michael Ruppert
http://books.google.com/books?id=ezyLJrAu1SIC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=ruppert+cia+banks&source=bl&ots=gfvViLVBgE&sig=jiw_LaLad0IiHdeLsFn2ZBZqpu8&hl=en&ei=7WT4StHnL4uwswOVx5zwCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=ruppert cia banks&f=false

This happened
http://wonkette.com/400939/barack-obamas-broken-plane-was-actually-hillary-clintons-plane
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/08/obamas_emergency_campaign_plan.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0QAewVrR28&NR=1
and this
http://www.constitution.org/piml/96052007.txt

and this
http://beyond-the-illusion.com/files/Conspiracy/Conspiracy-Nation/interview.sarah.mcclendon

[vinny]

you might like the idea of obama...

[blueskybigstar]

Forget the wonkettelink. This is a better one.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/obamas-plane-sc.html

[bluntobject]

Sorry, this is another problem for Obie, with his base. I am starting to seriously dislike him. He lies.

[dizmo4]

Pres. Obama obviously has nothing else on his plate that could possibly be requiring more of his attention than endangered species....

He hasn't delivered on Cold Fusion yet either. Nor Faster than Light travel.

[AnimalLover6]

If you understood the link between vanishing species and our own survival, you would be singing a different tune.

[TheHandyman]

Right! And he hasn't closed Guantanamo, provided trials for the prisoners held there, brought any troops home from Iraq, come up with a really good health care plan so I guess his administration will be known more by what wasn't accomplished than by what it did. So as far as FTL and cold fusion, I'd settle for some courageous leadership rather than his flying around offering apologies and making more empty promises!

[Danigirl65]

Well, you have to find a place to put the prisoners before you can close Guantanamo. Several trials have already taken place for some of these prisoners and some have been released. Also, troops HAVE come home from Iraq. Last I knew, being President is not the same as being a dictator (unless your name is Bush and you used LOTS and LOTS of signing statements and make up your own laws) so Congress really needs to step it up. Personally, I'm very happy with how our President has improved our world standing - the world doesn't hate our guts anymore which definitely opens up negotiations on things that are important - like France and Bermuda agreeing to taking released prisoners from Guantanamo. You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

[notthistime]

and PO hasn't delivered my pony with pink ribbons in her mane

[freelyb]

Your pony is now extinct. You'll get over it, but the pony won't.

[CGI]

Another bit of filler from The HeyWhatFau­ltCanWeFin­dwithObama­Today Post.

[LeftLeanWing]

Fanned !

It really is pervasive on the so-called Progressive websites especially HuffPost...

We tend to Eat Our Own

[AnimalLover6]

Not at all. This is serious business. Obama campaigned heavily on the green theme, and he has failed miserably.

[CGI]

Serious Business - what, that a Secretary of the Executive made a particular decision - or even a 'potentially' bad call? C'mon... And please please explain to me how he has 'failed miserably' on ecological issues? People, the President isn't the King. The executive branch has certain prerogatives but what is needed to address the big problems is legislation to pass in the House and Senate. Climate legislation is in fact next on the legislative agenda. Meanwhile, on the executive side, he has allocated stimulus funds to 2 key areas : the subsidizing of a nationwide smart grid and an unprecedented level of funding for scientific research in Biological sciences.

[simplify]

No he hasnt, please go to whitehouse.gov

[simplify]

Second

[MorgaineChya]

In many ways President Obama is worse than GWBush was, and in other ways he is as as bad as GWBush was.

Obama promised us change, but is delivering a revisit of the Bush administration.

He has broken 7 major campaign promises, the worst being his promsie to keep lobbyists out of his administration. Almost immediately after the election, he started packing his administration with lobbyists.

In some cases, Obama's choice (such as a Raytheon Vice President and Lobbyist apointed as Deputy Secretary of Defense) put into very powerful positions lobbyists and/or executives from companies who had a vested interest in contracts awarded in that industry.

Obama has turned out to be he perp of the biggest bait-and-switch swindle a president has ever pulled on the American people.

I shudder to think what damage Obama will have done to our country by the time he is voted out of office in 2012.

[thisisntme]

You sound like the conservatives with the sky-is-falling rhetoric. Chill out.

[LeftLeanWing]

Nonsense...

That lobbyist for Assistant Sec of Defense was Bob Gates Choice and he was quite adamant about it.

Here is ObamaScorecard on Promises:
The Obameter Scorecard

Promise Kept 53
Compromise 14
Promise Broken 7
Stalled 15
In the Works 139
Not yet rated 285

source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

-----

Leave it to you to take the smallest most unflattering number in all of this and then blow it up as the only thing that matters. It seems that so many of you expect absolute perfection... something no administration could nor should have to live up to.

The lobbyist thing you mentioned is irrelevant unless you can prove that one of this slipped in lobbyist actually directed federal dollars to their previous private industries interest ... And since the final decision on what monies get spent on Defense is Gates and Obama and Congress... You point is moot.

[randyjohnese]

Come on! Obama worse than Bush? In one year? and how do we know this? You compare Obama's first year to Clinton's average! Get a grip.

[Dem4Lyfe]

I think they were just talking about this one issue.

[AJH]

Are CBD and other environmental plainntiffs still swallowing the entire listing budget with court ordered critical habitat listings from the long term decades long failure of FWS to conduct the critical habitat actions alongside the endangered listing.

If so, just a sign of business as usual since about 1997 when they started doing so. If you force a government by court order to spoend it's money on one action they really can't perform the other.