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Sign-on Opportunity for Protecting the Endangered Species Act
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
(National Wildlife Federation)
| Sign-on Letter
to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce
Secretary Gary Locke | |
The deadline for signing on to this important letter is COB Thursday, April 16th. Please let Justin Allegro in NWF's Washington D.C. office know if you'd like to be added to the letter (include a contact name and your city and state). allegroj@nwf.org.
Benefit to Affiliate -
Protect endangered species and add significant regional weight to an important letter from those who care about wildlife. There remains the strong possibility that the administration will not fully take advantage of the opportunity granted by Congress to walk away from these controversial rule changes, and local support will help provide the cover to do so.
Purpose -
Affiliate opportunity to sign onto letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, asking those two men to use the authority recently granted them by Congress to rescind two last minute Bush Administration rule changes that weaken the Endangered Species Act. Congress gave the Secretaries until May 8th to rescind these changes in an expedited manner.
In February, President Obama weighed in with a memo asking the FWS and NOAA to temporarily ignore two newly created Bush rule changes to the management and protection of endangered species, so that the rules in question could be further reviewed. But Secretary Salazar and Locke have yet to take action to rescind the damaging rules. One of the Bush changes seriously weakens the interagency consultation requirements of Sec. 7 of the Endangered Species Act, allowing Federal Agencies in certain situations to take actions without first consulting with scientists at Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the potential impact to endangered species. The second rule specifically deals with the recent listing of the Polar Bear and it's response to Global Warming.
While this administration may consider making changes to the Endangered Species Act, these two rushed rules must be rescinded so that any process to improve the ESA is done in a fair and open manner.