Act NOW to Stop Bush from Gutting Federal Endangered Species Act!

Action Alert on Changes to ESA

Bush Administration Proposes to Gut Federal Endangered Species Act
ACT NOW!

In the midst of the collapse of California’s salmon and steelhead fisheries, the Bush
Administration is proposing massive radical changes in rules implementing the federal
Endangered Species Act. If implemented, the rule changes will grievously damage our
fisheries by comprising the last line of defense protecting listed species from their present
tumble toward extinction. It will make our efforts to protect and restore fisheries vastly
more difficult.

For the sake of our fisheries and future generations, we must stop this despicable attempt
to dismember our nation’s most successful law protecting fisheries and wildlife.

Under the current regulations, federal agencies must consult with scientists at the Fish
and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a
project is likely to harm endangered species or habitat.

However, the new regulations would:
1. Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered
Species Act;
2. Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight;
3. Limit which effects can be considered harmful;
4. Prevent consideration of a project's contribution to global warming;
5. Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project
in the instances when they are invited to participate -- or else the project
gets an automatic green light;
6. Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into
hundreds of small projects;
7. Limit protection of a species only to where it is currently found.

Because these regulations are administrative and not legislative, they won't need the
approval of Congress. In an effort to push these new rules through before the Bush
Administration leaves office, the normal 90-day comment period has been cut to 30 days.
The comment period began August 15th and ends September 15th.

And in a blatant effort to reduce the number of anglers and conservationists opposing the new rules, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that they will not accept e-mailed or faxed
comments.

Comments will only be accepted via:
1. Through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at,
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitCo
mment&o=09000064806c5826
Follow the instructions on the web site for submitting comments.

2. By U.S. Mail to Public Comment Processing, Attention: 1018-AT50,
Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, 4401 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 222, Arlington, VA 22203.

3. Alternatively, go to the NRDC switchboard at
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/awetzler/update_comment_period_on_th
e_b.html and use sign their letter or paste your own. The NRDC Action
Fund will collect, print and submit comments directly to the government at
the close of the comment period.

I cannot over stress how important it is for everybody to take action and oppose these
insidious rule changes.

Below is a sample letter (remember, it’s always good to modify any form letter to reflect
your own words). You can modify, print, sign and mail it to the address above or copy
and paste it into the comment section at the Web-portal site or the NRDC site.

Sincerely,
Bill Jennings, Executive Director
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
3536 Rainier Avenue
Stockton, CA 95204
p: 209-464-5067
c: 209-938-9053
f: 209-464-1028
e: deltakeep [at] aol.com
http://www.calsport.org


Sample Letter:
Mr. Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary
Department of the Interior
Dear Secretary Kempthorne,

I am writing to urge you to stop the changes to longstanding regulations implementing
the Endangered Species Act you recently proposed. These changes would drastically
weaken the interagency consultation provision of the Endangered Species Act -- widely
considered the most important and effective provision of the Act -- and also undercut the
Endangered Species Act's proper role in addressing the impacts of climate change on our
nation's most imperiled wildlife.

For 35 years the Endangered Species Act has protected imperiled species from the effects
of potentially harmful federal projects. The strength of the Endangered Species Act has
been the checks and balances created by interagency consultation between federal
agencies as they pursue projects, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine
Fisheries Services, whose primary responsibility is the conservation of endangered
species.

Interagency consultation ensures that federal experts independently review federal
projects that may impact America’s most imperiled fish and wildlife and that project
modifications are made where necessary. The proposed regulations would eliminate
interagency consultation on thousands of federal projects that pose a risk to endangered
and threatened species each year and transfer the responsibility to protect fish and
wildlife to agencies with no or little knowledge or expertise in fish or wildlife protection.
Furthermore, some agencies' interests could be directly at odds with the well being of
endangered species.

By eliminating or reducing the consultation processes long embedded in the law, the
proposed rules remove essential safeguards, including independent scientific review. In
essence, the rules replace science with politics. They will almost certainly result in
detrimental impacts on endangered and imperiled species and increase the likelihood that
opportunities to avoid such impacts are overlooked.

Notwithstanding the fact that these are the most significant changes to regulations
implementing the Endangered Species Act in more than 20 years, you have provided the
public just 30 days in which to submit comments, not the traditional 90, and prevented
anyone from sending their comments by email.

I request you set an additional 60 days to allow the public an opportunity to meaningfully
comment on these proposed regulations.

I also urge you to not to finalize these regulatory changes.

Thank you.