Endangered Species Rule Sealing Bush Legacy on Warming

More bad news on the midnight regulations front. A pending rule that would change the way the federal government enforces the Endangered Species Act has become even more controversial. When it unveiled a notice of proposed rulemaking in August, the Interior Department proposed a major change to longstanding practices for the ways federal officials make decisions about endangered species. The rule would alter implementation of the Endangered Species Act by allowing federal land-use managers to approve projects like infrastructure creation, minerals extraction, or logging without consulting federal habitat managers and biological health experts responsible for species protection. Currently, consultation is required. But as The Washington Post reported today, the final version of the rule may be even worse. The rule now specifically targets global warming as a factor to be exempted from decision making. The Post obtained an internal draft of the rule, and conveys the operative sentence: Federal agencies are not required to consult on an action when . . . the effects of such action are manifested only through global processes and (i) cannot be reliably predicted or measured at the local scale, or (ii) would result at most in an extremely small, insignificant local impact, or (iii) are such that the potential risk of harm to species or habitat are remote. The endangered species rule is still being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which reviews drafts of all significant agency proposed and final rules. When it is published, it will likely take effect 30 days later. (For rules expected to have an annual economic impact of $100 million or less, agencies must wait at least 30 days before making the rule effective. For rules meeting the $100 million threshold, so called major rules, agencies must wait at least 60 days.) If the rule is published and in effect by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, the Obama administration will be unable to quickly undo the changes. Then, species managers in the Obama administration would be hamstrung by this bad Bush-era rule. And that may be what the Bush White House is after. Apparently, Bush is no fan of the Endangered Species Act. Reg•Watch will let White House Press Secretary Dana Perino articulate the rest: "I know that the Endangered Species Act is a tangled web that doesn't actually help support any species, including our own."
back to Blog