first action: reverse bush

Almost as soon as Obama was inaugurated yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel sent a memo that stops all pending regulations set forth by the Bush Administration. 

Since November, when Obama won the election, the Bush Administration submitted over 100 midnight regulations to be passed prior to the end of his term.  It is unclear how many have not taken effect.  

Many that have already taken effect are ones that are deleterious to the environment.  Most of them contain some version of limiting scientific review for environmental impact, for example in the approval of dams, power plants and timber sales.  Most notably was the change to the Endangered Species Act, in which many animals were removed from the listing, as well as the approval leaning towards corporations without regard for the impact to animals.

The Obama Administration has vowed to reverse the rulings made by Bush, however it will take a while as the process has to start all over again, for each and every ruling.

getting away with murder

New information alleges that Bush Administration officials broke the law. Shocker.

Bush’s Interior Department Interfered With Scientific Work To Limit Endangered Species Protection, via Huffington Post:

A high-ranking Interior Department official tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years, a new inspector general report finds, concluding she exerted improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought.

Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service, did pervasive harm to the department’s morale and integrity and may have risked the well-being of species with her agenda, Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney said in his report out Monday.

The Interior Department last year reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found that MacDonald had applied political pressure in those cases. The new report looked at nearly two dozen other endangered species decisions not examined in the earlier report. It found MacDonald directly interfered with at least 13 decisions and indirectly affected at least two more.

It should be noted, she is NOT on the EPA’s Most Wanted list.

Bush Administration Covered Up 500+ Blocked Water Pollution Cases, via Environmental News Service:

The results of a Congressional investigation released today detail the collapse of the Clean Water Act enforcement program in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that clouded the question of whether rivers, streams and wetlands remain protected from pollution and development.

“One of the legacies of the Bush Administration is its failure to protect the safety and health of the nation’s waters,” said Chairman Waxman. “Our investigation reveals that the clean water program has been decimated as hundreds of enforcement cases have been dropped, downgraded, delayed, or never brought in the first place. We need to work with the new Administration to restore the effectiveness and integrity to this vital program.”

i don’t need to explain

The Bush administration on Thursday eliminated one step in the effort to protect endangered species, as it will now allow federal agencies to bypass consultation with government scientists about whether new rules will harm threatened wildlife.

The U.S. Interior Department issued a rule that allows agencies to avoid consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service if Interior concludes that any actions they fund would not harm an endangered species.

2 months to go

Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don’t pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.

In Bush To Relax Endangered Species Regulations Before Obama Can Reverse Them, via the Huffington Post, the changes that Bush intends to make are outlined.

For example, in another move that indicates how this administration feels about science: The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

The good news is that if this were put in place, Congress could overturn it via the Congressional Review Act. This has only been used once in the last twelve years, but Democrats have already vowed to enact this to stop harm done by Bush.

We are going to see a lot of things pushed through in the next few months. Stay tuned….

presidential positions

HERE is a link, provided by GRIST, on the two major candidates and their positions on Endangered Species.

Know who your voting for.

As you read this, Bush is doing it again…

I don’t know how better to say what happened today. Bush and his people are giving the middle finger to the environment, once again.

Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don’t require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

It was originally announced in August that the administration was going to reevaluate the law, and fortunately 100,000-200,000 plus letters were sent opposing the decision. Over the next four, eight hour days, 15 people are going to peruse these letters and determine if they have any chance of changing his mind.

Let me put it this way… if you are a praying kind of person… this might be something to include.

You can get a summary from a CNN article from August HERE. And you can get some information about the letters HERE and HERE.