ESA reforms need a push to win Congressional approval
There's no two ways to say it: The federal Endangered Species Act has been subverted by activists who use its more prescriptive provisions as a tool for stopping or delaying residential and commercial development, and expansion of public infrastructure such as roads, highways, water systems and sewer systems. Without your voice, however, legislation making the ESA more human - and animal-friendly - could stall in the Senate. Click here to learn what you can do to help.
Everyone's a winner---social promotion now applied to critters.
Likely afraid of the crushing blow to their self esteem, Washington bureaucrats are sending almost all the creatures considered endangered to the top of the endangered species list. While Noah the Newt is enjoying his most endangered species ranking---the award seems to have lost its luster. After all, if everyone has a BMW, what's the point?
A report critical of government efforts to revive endangered plants and animals was released recently by the Government Accountability Office (GAO [formerly the General Accounting Office]), the investigative arm of Congress.
The report faults the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's system of assigning a score to each endangered species ranking the risks faced allowing prioritization of funding and recovery efforts. The report said that a disproportionate number of species were assigned high priority status, making the entire rating system less valuable. The report also faulted how funds are allocated and noted that only a handful of species protected by the Endangered Species Act have recovered enough to be removed from the list.
Read more from the GAO: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-211from the House natural resources committee: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/Press/
releases/2005/0426esagao.htm
ESA reform on tap—
A report highlighting flaws in the federal Endangered Species Act and urging reform to the 30-year-old legislation was recently released by the Committee on Resources at the US House of Representatives. The report, issued by Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Tracy), finds that rather than protecting plants and animals threatened with extinction and restoring their populations, the law has created a population explosion -- of frivolous lawsuits by extreme no-growth advocates and "Not In My Backyard" activists. The swarm of suits has consumed the time and resources of scientists who spend more time in court than doing scientific research. Court judgements also have cost jobs where construction projects of every type have been mothballed, delayed or caught up in red tape. Read the report for more details.
Paving
the way for gridlock—
As if the uncertainty
created by state transportation program cuts and the limping economy
aren't enough, commuters who must endure the nightmarish traffic
jams along U.S. Hwy 101 in Sonoma County each day now may have another
obstacle standing in the way of congestion relief — the California
tiger salamander. Word has come down that a planned highway widening
project between the Marin County line and Windsor River Road could
be delayed up to two years while local officials are forced to conduct
an environmental survey to determine how many — if any — salamanders
live in the project area. Such a survey would add an estimated $300,000
to the cost of the project. The project is already delayed at least
two years because of state budget cuts — but Sonoma County Transportation
officials had hoped to complete the environmental documentation
for the work beforehand so that the project was ready to go once
the economic picture improved. Now, because of a paperwork requirement,
it appears as if an expensive biological survey will be required
even though the project planners had intended all along to move
forward with construction assuming the salamander was present, just
to be cautious and conservative in their approach. The salamander
was listed last year as a federally protected endangered species
following an emergency listing granted by the Fish and Wildlife
Service in response to petitioning environmentalists bent on slowing
or preventing development in the area.
Owls
fail to impress commission
Environmentalists
have suffered yet another setback in their campaign to turn the
screws on development and building throughout the state by pursuing
unnecessary protections for "endangered" wildlife. The latest snafu
was an unsuccessful attempt by so-called "biodiversity" groups to
get the Western burrowing owl listed as a threatened or endangered
species under the California Endangered Species Act. Such a listing
would have set into motion a full array of regulations, restrictions
and expensive requirements for those wishing to build or develop
in areas the owl is thought to exist. The owl lives in burrows abandoned
by rodents. In a petition to list the owl as protected under state
statutes, environmentalists contended historic populations had dropped
enough that development should be monitored and restricted in areas
where the creature might be impacted. But the State Department of
Fish and Game said the case for the owl was not compelling enough
to warrant protections, partly because the environmentalists failed
to demonstrate that the owl was in any immediate danger of becoming
extinct. Business and labor groups that included the Alliance organized
against the listing, pointing out flaws in the argument outlined
in the petition. The Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously
to reject the petition in December. Environmentalists say they will
take the matter to court next.
A lesser shrimp
The federal government has decided to reject a petition by environmentalists to declare the midvalley fairy shrimp as a protected or endangered species. The decision is good news for the heavy construction industry and higher education, as federal Endangered Species Act protections for the Sea Monkey-like crustacean could have interfered with construction of the new University of California campus at Merced. In arriving at their decision, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials maintained the shrimp already enjoys enough protected habitat to ensure its survival. The creature, with its delicate legs and odd life cycle, exists in seasonal pools throughout the mid-region of the state. Because other types of fairy shrimp are already protected under the ESA, a separate listing for the midvalley shrimp isn't necessary, FWS said. "From what we know of the current range and distribution of the species, it is well represented by occurrences on protected lands and in areas with little or no known current threat," the agency proclaimed in arriving at the decision in January. The decision is in response to a 2001 petition by environmentalists and was hailed by Congressional leaders in the Modesto region.
SF Water System repairs under assualt
As much as it leaves observers scratching their heads, environmentalists still reeling from their political loss in last November's San Francisco water bond election are continuing their assault on efforts by the city to rebuild and rehabilitate its aging drinking water treatment and distribution system. The latest move? An organization called Restore Hetch Hetchy, an arm of the Sierra Club, has sued the city and the city's public utilities commission for trying to move forward with a plan to reduce turbidity in water taken from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, the city's main water source.
Their reasoning is that a 60-inch outflow pipe that would be installed to modernize O'Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River might be used to increase the amount of water the city takes. The real reason for the project is to provide better, not more, water to the system's more than 2 million users.
Before suing, environmentalists tied the project approval up for weeks with procedural appeals while they argued for a full environmental impact report on the $2.9 million job. When the city promised to do such a study before ever using both outflow pipes at the same time, environmentalists at first said they were satisfied. The existing pipe is at the bottom of the dam.
But a few weeks later, Restore Hetch Hechy sued anyway, flouting last fall's voter mandate. San Franciscans approved a major overhaul of the city's water system last November despite fierce opposition from Restore Hetch Hetchy and others. The win sanctioned $1.4 billion in revenue bonds to, among other things, protect the city from a long-term water outage in the event of an earthquake.
Since losing the election, environmentalists have been fighting hard to prevent efforts to streamline even non-controversial projects. In the event of a quake, the city could be without water for up to 60 days unless the aged infrastructure is rehabilitated in time. Even running water is controversial these days, it seems.
Your car pollutes, not mine
Californians consider air pollution a serious problem. And they believe automobiles cause pollution. But they think cars that belong to other people pollute more than their own. The non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California conducted a telephone poll of 2,002 residents in June to get a snapshot of public attitudes and perceptions about air pollution. What they found is that Californians are largely uninformed about air pollution in general. According to the poll, 58 percent of Californians consider air pollution to be a serious health threat. And despite the fact that air quality has improved dramatically since the 1970s when the federal Clean Air Act took effect, 68 percent said they felt little has been done to improve air quality in the past 20 years. But most telling: 47 percent said they thought vehicles caused much of the air pollution (they actually do, although the amount has dropped significantly because of technological improvements over the years), but only 44 percent thought their own cars were part of the problem. And 73 percent said they drive to work alone.
FWS Economic Analyses Flawed, Study Says
A first-of-its kind study funded in part by the Alliance raises serious questions about whether the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been adequately addressing economic concerns when deciding whether to designative critical habitat areas for endangered species. The study, by Dr. David Sunding of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, was commissioned at the request of the non-profit California Resources Management Institute. Its overall finding: FWS underestimated by 7 to 14 times the potential economic impact from a proposal to designate 1.7 million acres as critical habitat for vernal pools species. The critical habitat plan was proposed to satisfy a legal settlement reached between FWS and an environmental group. The economic impact methodology used by FWS and its consultants, which limited the economic impact to $25 million, “seriously misstates the distribution of economic impacts among groups in society by inappropriately attributing all costs of designation to landowners.” This methodology is used uniformly by the agency; the vernal pools example was highlighted by the state. The economic impacts from critical habitat designations, in fact, reverberate throughout the economy, affecting not just landowners but also consumers, land developers and others – in particular those consumers at the lower end of the housing market, the study concludes. The study, which includes suggestions for new methods FWS might use when calculating economic impacts in the future, has been presented to Department of the Interior officials and Congressional staffers. To view the report, go to www.calresources.org on the Web.
Things are looking up, statistics show
Despite all the doom and gloom you may hear about the state of the environment these days, fact is air and water quality in the United State have been steadily improving for decades, a newly updated report shows. According to seventh annual update of The Pacific Research Institute's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, six criteria air pollutants have dropped between 29 and 97 percent since 1976. Water pollution also has dropped significantly. Read the report for details..
Sac. Bee series lambastes enviro. tactics
The Sacramento Bee recently published a five-part investigative series of articles raising questions about the fundraising tactics, legal strategies, social and political agenda, and effectiveness of the environmental movement. The newspaper's "Environmental Inc." series confirmed that environmentalism has evolved into a big business driven by a thirst for funding, employing aggressive legal tactics and pursuing a radical agenda that sometimes has little to do with "saving" the planet. Please take the time to read the series.
<
Return to ReBuildCA Homepage |
We
all share the responsibilities of environmental protection and preservation.
But too much of what we read and hear about environmental issues
lacks balance, clarity, truth and reason. The Environmental Intelligence
Report (EIR) cuts through rhetoric and hidden agendas for an honest
look at environmental developments. It's the other side of the story.
The
left margin of this page offers interesting, and often infuriating,
tidbits on the environmental movement: If you have one, let us know.
We'll check it out and put it online: 