Midnight Mischief

Outgoing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has just finalized last-minute regulations gutting the endangered species act, a move opposed by the public, Congress, and President-elect Obama, but a favorite cause of the oil, coal and mining industries, as well as the free-market, anti-regulatory ideologues who brought us our current recession.

The new regs forbid consideration of global warming as a cause of extinction -- something Kempthorne was forced to do earlier this year to protect the endangered polar bear. This piece of midnight rule-making may undo the overwhelmingly popular and scientifically supported protections for the polar bear. The new regulations also relieve federal agencies from having to consult federal wildlife scientists when considering projects and permits that might affect endangered species. Instead, the agencies championing the projects can consult with themselves.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and Defenders of Wildlife immediately filed suit in the Northern District of California to stop the regulations, on the grounds that they violated the very law they are supposed to implement. The Bush Administration also may have violated procedures by improperly dispensing with the overwhelmingly negative public comment on the new regulations -- over 300,000 written comments were filed, but the administration spent only two to three weeks reviewing them (which means a comment would have had to be dispensed with every three seconds).

As Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, now with Defenders of Wildlife, put it: "This administration's disdain for wildlife and the environment has never been more clear than it is today... They are doing everything they can to cement their anti-environmental legacy before the Obama administration takes office."

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Comments

[Edward Humes - Huffpost Blogger]

To RighWingMarine: Thanks for your comment. These are classic but flawed arguments that were rejected by, among others, the president who signed the Endangered Species Act, Richard Nixon, and his Republican appointee, Chief Justice Warren Burger. The act is so "radical" that it passed the Senate unanimously. with only four dissents in the House. .

Why shouldn't landowners have absolute power over their land? One might ask, why have fire codes, or building codes, or ban dumping toxins on your own land? Such measures impede property rights, too, yet we accept them as reasonable. Should you be allowed to kill the bald eagle nesting on your property? Most Americans would say no. Property rights are and should be strong, but not absolute. This argument is, in any case, misleading, because the number of private property owners affected by the Endangered Species Act is miniscule.

These midnight rule changes are really about public lands, the vast wilderness areas that the American public owns, and that the Bush Administration wants to give over to industry exploitation, at the expense of wildlife and the environment. Your question -- Does running a factory in Des Moines endanger polar bears? -- is the wrong question. The useful question is this: Will broad-based reductions in greenhouse gas emissions counter global warming and its effects, which include melting Arctic sea ice and the extinction of the polar bear? The answer, clearly, is yes. And not doing so, according to the best available science and commonsense, is madness.

[RightWingMarine]

I agree that the dumping of toxic material on private land should be regulated as that dumping may directly harm others on their land.

What is a greater concern to me is the view that government has the authority to impose additional regulations on us. I believe that freedoms can be lost slowly and incrementally. Take smoking for example. It used to be that individual airlines had the ability to decide on their own if they would permit smoking on their flights but then came the law that there would be no smoking on international flights designed to be so reasonable no one could say no. But then we lost the ability to smoke on any flights and now it is illegal in some states to smoke in your own apartment.

Los Angles recently isolated a portion of their town that will not permit any new fast food resturants. Why can't the people who own the land their decide on their own if they want to bulid a McDonalds or a Whole Foods?

While this act may currently only affect a small minority of businesses it is only the beginning.

[RightWingMarine]

if some land is purchased why shouldn't the person purchasing the land get to decide what to do with it? If I buy some land why can't I decide if I will plant trees or cut down the ones already there? Why can't I decide if I will introduce more animals onto my land or remove the ones already there? Either this is my land or it is not.

Now obviously if my actions on my land lead to harming my neighbor such as diverting a river or storing hazardous material, as that causes harm to another that should be restricted. I believe it is tenous at best to argue that running a factory in Des Moines is the direct cause of fewer polar bears.

[bluegrasstafarian]

Brother, in the end, we all belong to the earth. When all is said and done we might get a 6x6 ft. hole in the ground. This earth is just us much our children's as it is ours. Just because we have the power to change the face of the earth doesn't mean we need to wield it all over. I hope maybe some reasonable discourse will result from this post, so please, let's respectfully discuss this issue. From your name, it is apparent that you have served our country so I would like to thank you for your service. Now let's partake in the democratic forum of free and open debate that so many brave men have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend.

[bluegrasstafarian]

I believe it is all of our patriotic duty to cooperate and curtail our consumption in readjusting to a more modest way of life. This includes using land more responsibly . You've made some good points, but I would contend that the coal burning power plants in Des Moines, the Midwest and Alabama harm your countrymen in Appalachia. In the southeast, our children have the highest rates of asthma in the country. Our forests are dying from air pollution, which is the worst in the country here in the southern mountains. Our mountains are also dying to provide the coal that in turn poisons us. These are some points I raise. I love my mountains being a son of Appalachia, and I believe that our land, this land which is interwoven to many of our countrymen's identities, deserves protecting as much as our Constitution, Flag and Civil Rights. That our health, the health of our children, grand children and so on, needs to be defended from unjust compromise in the name of corporate profit. There is so much to say, but it is late now and I have a busy day tomorrow, so please take care, brother.

James in N.C.