In case you folks missed this!
Phil
Edwin P. (Phil) Pister
Executive Secretary, Desert Fishes Council
P.O. Box 337, Bishop, CA 93515 (for regular mail)
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(760) 872-8751 [FAX and voice phone]
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"Education is what remains after what has been learned has been
forgotten." .....B.F. Skinner
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Opening remarks: hearing on implementation of esa, may 9,
2007
source: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/
Opening Remarks of U.S. Rep Nick J. Rahall, II
Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources
Hearing on
Implementation of the Endangered Species Act: Politics or Science?
May 9, 2007
Last week, Julie MacDonald resigned her position as Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks at the Department
of the Interior, ending what many staff felt was a reign of terror.
Unfortunately, when she packed up she left behind a lot of baggage,
including an agency that seems bent on abdicating its mandated
responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act to protect God's
creatures for future generations.
From changes in regulations to poorly developed legal reviews that
have left the agency sorely vulnerable to attack in the courts, the
evidence of a systematic effort to undermine the law and species
protection is quite clear. This is an agency that seems focused on
one goal – weakening the law by Administrative fiat and it is doing
much of that work in the shadows, shrouded from public view.
For example, we know that the Department has been contemplating,
for some time, a major rewrite of regulations to implement that
law. We know this because a copy of draft regulations was leaked
to the media. As Chairman of the Committee with oversight of this
matter, I asked for copies of the same draft regulations, but
received no response from the Department. That is, until Monday,
two days before this hearing.
That response from Director Dale Hall said, The Department has made
no final decision on whether to propose any regulatory changes to
the ESA. Yet, the letter includes a chart prepared, ironically, by
the Center for Biological Diversity with the Fish and Wildlife
Service's editorial notes describing their Acurrent draft proposal.
While Fish and Wildlife has gone to extreme lengths to keep these
documents away from the Committee, special interest groups
challenging ESA decisions have found it easy enough to get their
hands on a version of them.
Just last week, on May 1, 2007, the American Forest Resource
Council had to amend a complaint it filed in court on March 7,
2007, citing a regulation that is not even on the books but is
rumored to be under consideration – apparently, top secret
consideration – at the Interior Department. Just how the timber
industry was able to procure the draft regulation is a matter of
much speculation.
What is clear, however, is that the timber industry has better
access to information from the Bush Administration than the
People's Representatives in Congress.
Proposed changes to the regulations are not the only way the
Administration seeks to undermine the law. While much attention in
recent days has focused on Julie MacDonald, the Inspector General
issued a report that shed light on problems that run far deeper
than those that she caused and those will be the focus of much of
this hearing today.
For all of its talk about faith and religious values, I find it
impossible to reconcile that public persona with this
Administration's flagrant lack of regard for the work of the
Creator's hand. As well, I do not find pushing policies that
imperil God's creatures and that place at greater risk of
extinction plants that provide life-saving drugs to be in keeping
with His grand design.
For me to sit here and suggest that the Department is on a sad and
irresponsible mission to undercut species recovery is an
understatement. What we are seeing here – if we could actually
see behind the cloak of secrecy surrounding the Interior Department
– is a complete disregard for the very science that has equipped us
to be responsible stewards of this Earth with which we have been
blessed.
We must ask ourselves as a Nation, how do we want this government
to run the Endangered Species Program – entangled in politics, or
enlightened by science?
