Archive for the ‘Earthjustice’ Category
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
I was looking at Earthjustice’ news magazine “In Brief” and ran across a chart that gave scores to Obama for undoing what George Bush did about major issues relative to the environment. The issues were greenhouse gases, roadless areas, the marbled murrelet (bird), mountaintop mining, wolves, hazardous waste, scientific consultation, snowmobiles, and California’s request to clamp down on vehicle emissions. Out of all of those issues scoring A’s to B+’s the lonely F went to WOLVES.
It is really apparent that wolves are being singled out, not worthy of attention from the Obama Administration. Look for yourself, Wolves really stick out on that long environmental “to do” list.
http://www.earthjustice.org/library/features/obamas-progress.html?qp_source=homepage.
Why is it wolves have taken a back seat in this administration? Oh that’s right—Ken Salazar, Secy. of Interior and member of the Cattlemen’s Association. It’s a bad deal for the wolf, a Native American icon that our Secy. of Interior once again does not understand fully the good impact wolves have on our environment. There are species of trees, shrubs, and grasses reappearing in Yellowstone that were formerly decimated by grazing herds of wolf prey. Wolves have literally changed the landscape of Yellowstone for the good.
As Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated about our new Secretary of Interior:
As a Colorado rancher, landowner, and member of the Cattlemen’s Association, Secretary Salazar comes from the old school generation, where wolves are only seen as vicious animals that prey on livestock. They are not looked upon as an integral check-and-balance component of the natural world. We need a Secretary of Interior, who can make wildlife decisions based on science, not politics. That was a commitment made by President Obama, which does not translate into Ken Salazar’s premature and reckless de-listing of a species that will soon be targeted for a bloodbath.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5266-Seattle-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d7-Wildlife-coalition-will-battle-Salazar-to-save-gray-wolves-from-slaughter.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the Cattlemen’s Association has influenced Salazar far more than science-based facts about wolves. He allowed them to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act prematurely, and therefore exposed them to slaughter again. What was the sense of spending all the time and energy to reintroduce the gray wolf back to the Yellowstone area if their increase was cut short? The science that reintroduced them also produced viable numbers the wolf population needed to reach to be considered stable. Wolf populations never neared these numbers. As a matter of fact wolf populations in the Greater Rockies was down 25% in 2008 due to distemper, mange, and infighting.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/01/yellowstone-national-parks-wolf-population-down-more-25-percent.
Bring back the science when it comes to America’s wildlife not the whims of special interest groups. If you care about what is happening to one of Native America’s greatest icons—the wolf, contact your reps and also support the reintroduced PAW (Protect America’s Wildlife) Act. The PAW Act will stop aerial killing of any animal for good. This Act needs to pass and soon as Alaska is planning yet another aerial killing season of both wolves and bears. Stop aerial hunting before it spreads to other states.
To sign a petition to support the PAW Act goto:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/477616584.
Tags: Secy. Salazar
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Science, Wildlife, Wolves | No Comments »
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
The Native American community is standing up for the environment in the form of a lawsuit against Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Deputy Secy. James Steinbridge, and the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers over Enbridge Energy’s Alberta Clipper pipeline set to “deliver 450,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day to be pumped from northern Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, for refining,” according to an article on ENS.
Evidently, the pipeline crosses Native American soil without their approval. It would also “impact over 200 water bodies and would destroy more than 1,200 acres of upland forested lands, more than 650 acres of open lands, and more than 1,300 acres of wetlands.” The Native Americans have support in the legal system through major Environmental Groups like Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and state environmental groups also.
Tar sand oil is some of the dirtiest and the Native Americans say that the pipeline is not is not keeping the ideology of moving toward cleaner energy promoted by the Obama Administration and that the Obama Administration is not listening to the petitions and voices of a growing number of Americans that want to move to a cleaner future for America.
I have to reiterate here that after the presidential election the number one issue people were concerned about was 1) NATIONAL HEALTH CARE, and 2) THE ENVIRONMENT. I was happy to hear that and blogged about it. I have to admit that I was a little surprised that the Iraq war was not in the one or two slot. I was also surprised to see the Obama Administration put so many conservative leaning politicians at the head of many of the Departments within the government relative to the environment and animal welfare like Ken Salazar, who to me is not any better than Kempthorne that headed up the Dept. of Interior under Bush. Salazar is nothing but a Blue Dog Democrat (might as well be a Republican) RANCHER, and therefore, the plight of polar bear has been ignored and we’re now slaughtering wolves in Yellowstone park even though they never grew to the numbers they were supposed to before control measures were needed.
Just so you know, we’re slaughtering wolves claiming they are over running their numbers when in fact 27% of all wolf pups suffered horrible deaths due to the parvo virus that can strike our own dogs. Nature balances many of our wild animal populations, plus we infringe on them horribly through urban sprawl and loss of habitat, and our pollution, but we insist on hunting them anyway because of the power of the HUNTING LOBBY and glorified NRA.
I’m glad Native Americans are finally speaking out to protect the land that was rightfully theirs to begin with. Hopefully, they will support efforts to keep wolves protected too since wolves have long been an honored part of their culture also.
Read more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2009/2009-09-03-091.asp
Posted in Alternative Energy, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environmental Legislation, Environmental News Service, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Industry, Nature, Oil Industry, Oil Lobby, Politics, Pollution, Refineries, Sport Hunting, The Sierra Club, Utilities, Wildlife | No Comments »
Friday, August 21st, 2009
A new U.S. Geological Study “found mercury in every freshwater fish from nearly 300 streams that were tested, an astonishing result because mercury has usually been associated with large saltwater fish,” according to an article on ABC news website,
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=8369324.
The 7-year study tested more than a 1,000 fish. The USGS warns Americans to limit the amount of large predator freshwater fish they eat like WALLEYE! Hear that Michiganders? Enjoy, but limit the amount you eat.
Even worse about a quarter of all those fish have mercury levels higher than what the EPA says is safe. If you followed my blogs through a few years of the Bush Administration, the EPA was corporate friendly to say the least.
The article then defers to the National Fisheries Institute’s response to this study: “If you have a family member that’s out there fishing in a stream, beware.” That pretty much supports the story. The Fisheries Institute just wanted to make it clear that the fish you buy in a store isn’t as bad as that fish you caught in what you thought was a nice clear stream. I did a blog on this long ago. You’ve got a choice of wild caught fish with mercury or farm raised fish with PCB’s.
Since I sit in my TV room that overlooks the canal while I write this, I’m also looking at the wetlands behind my house. I can’t help but think of the huge chain of animals that call the canal home–all the little baby geese, and ducks that I’ve fed that swim up every spring, the little muskrats that run up my berm and grab one of my apples on the ground, the turtles that sun themselves on the downed logs, and all the birds in the mix including swans. I can’t help but think what we’ve done to them. Not fair, not fair at all.
And just what causes mercury in the water EVERYWHERE? Gee I wonder. Did you know that the coal lobby managed to gouge holes in the House version of the American Climate and Energy Security Act so that coalburners will still supply half of our electricity until 2025 and the rate of pollution will go unchanged for the next 15 years? According to Earthjustice, not only will they keep polluting but may expand with 27 new coalburners that will also be exempt from having to curb or capture any pollution.
When you consider the fuss Americans made at the American auto industry for producing gas guzzling, polluting SUV’s because the same American’s demanded those types of cars, you can clearly see this is a really unfair playing field as to who is towing the line on pollution or not. The coal industry is no different than oil—they are fat with money unlike our auto industry. Money talks. That’s what every other polluting industry thinks too. As Earthjustice reports, “The concessions the coal industry has gained so far have encouraged other fossil fuel lobbyists to step up their efforts to maintain the disastrous status quo.” That means some pretty hefty offers heaped on our congress people.
And everyone is already saying the Senate will never pass the House version. The Senate will undoubtedly water it down more. Unless of course we voice our opinion to our reps to move forward and not weaken the bill but fill those unfair gaps in a bill that must include all industry not just a chosen few.
We’re going to shoot off our foot before long and continue working up our leg if we don’t see that reform isn’t a choice but a necessity.
http://unearthed.earthjustice.org/blog/2009-july/trip-van-noppen/lets-defend-climate-change-bill.
Posted in Animals in Peril, Coal, Coal Mining, Coalburners, Earthjustice, Environmental Legislation, Food, Fossil Fuel, Great Lakes Pollution, Industry, Marine Life, Michigan Clean Water, Protecting Wetlands, Utilities, Wetlands | No Comments »
Friday, August 7th, 2009
Thanks to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals 40 million acres of national forest get a reprieve from the ax. According to an Earthjustice e-mail, the court stated: “The watered-down roadless policy put forth by the Bush administration was illegal and reinstated the original 2001 Roadless Rule throughout the country except for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and Idaho.” Why not the Tongass? Well that’s an interesting story.
In 2002 Alaska Growth Capital in partnership with Alaska’s Forestry Service set up a program to help rural communities in Alaska. Federal funding was leveraged to help produce a variety of forest–based goods and services to meet domestic and international needs. This program also granted loans for business start-ups. Steve Seley secured an $800,000 loan and put up $800,000 of his own money for his company’s (Pacific Log and Lumber) sawmill on Gravina Island in the Tongass. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:8LQDo7Unq4MJ:www.fs.fed.us/r10/spf/publications/spf_2002AccompReport
_finalbyUntalaso_090503.pdf+who+is+Steve+Seley+related+to+in+government%3F&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.
An odd place to plan on making money since the Tongass was protected by the roadless rule in 2002.
In 2003, Bush decided to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the 2001 Roadless Rule in the late afternoon, the day before Christmas. http://www.nativeforest.org/action_alerts/archive/wildlands_1_13_04.htm .
That’s a little curious. He also announced that he planned to allow the governors of the lower 48 states to have the last say so as to what is protected by the Roadless Rule. In short, he effectively repealed the Roadless Rule by relinguishing Federal Power over NATIONAL parks. What does a state have any business deciding what happens in a NATIONAL PARK? National parks go over state lines, and are therefore shared by other states. That would be like Michigan deciding everything to do with the Great Lakes just because we have the most shoreline.
By 2006, Steve Seley’s business, all of 23 people, was in trouble. A timber sale that was supposed to happen did not happen yet. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/373461/gravina_island_mill
_owner_hardened_by_hardship/index.html. But a little farther on in the year, the U.S. Forest Service signed an agreement with Alaska that assures Seley’s company will get the timber sales agreement in exchange for biological data of the Tongass area. Alaska and the USFS stated: “‘This is a cooperative agreement that accomplishes two things: to provide a timber supply, and to collectively share state data on all biological information gathered and collected with the Forest Service to help rewrite the Tongass Land Management Plan,’ said Michael Menge, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources. Oh I’m sure they would love to rewrite the plan and open up a heck of a lot more of Tongass National Park to useless logging. One of the Forest Service’s sticking points in offering sales, according to industry and state officials, is the rewrite of the plan.” http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/020506/hom_20060205005.shtml.
In the same Alaska Journal article it was noted: “Gov. Frank Murkowski’s chief of staff, Jim Clark, who was the former chief lobbyist and attorney for the Alaska Logging Association, signed the memorandums for the state, and that Jack Phelps, special projects manager for the state, is the former executive director of the Alaska Forest Association.” We can see that the state of Alaska relative to this agreement was pretty much represented by the logging industry. So we can basically say that the logging industry cut a deal with the U.S. Forestry Service to give timber sales to the logging industry while they collect biological data of the habitat in and around the Tongass. Isn’t that a little backward?
Usually data like this is collected in order to understand what and how many species and/or ecosystems will be impacted by the logging business. To log first and study the impact during or afterward is ridiculous. And do you think it’s ethical to allow members of the logging business to be the ones to collect data in the first place that might possibly influence decisions made by the USFS in the future relative to the Tongass? The data might be a little skewed in the lumber industry’s favor.
Well, I guess we’ll see because our Secy. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack agreed to a new plan using taxpayer dollars to allow logging in the Tongass basically so that Steve Seley and others like him can stay afloat. So our taxpayer dollars are financing logging that is not really needed so that small businesses in rural areas of Alaska can stay working? http://www.examiner.com/x-13344-Wildlife-Conservation-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Obama-administration-clearcutting-Tongass-National-Forest-with-taxpayer-money. A sweet deal for Steve, but why was it we didn’t bail out the auto industry? Citizens of Alaska have the 5th highest median income of all the states.
Surely keeping the Tongass in an unprotected state for 6 years to ultimately allow unnecessary logging to take place in our largest U.S. temperate rainforest is not about Steve Seley. He’s the door that just opened. The data collected about environmental impacts will more than likely be watered down in the logging industry’s favor and slowly we will destroy a rainforest for no good reason than to give someone a job. For all that I read and there is much in the articles just cited here, the Tongass area lumber cannot compete with others between the quality of wood, and the shipping distance. As taxpayers we should not be happy about this.
As the Chicago Examiner asked: Why should we care about protecting Tongass National Forest from logging?
For one, this ancient, vital forest ecosystem belongs to all Americans. It’s our own 17 million acre lush, cool shaded rainforest. It is supposed to exist for all Americans for all time, not as a quick cash-cow for a few greedy businesses. There are endangered wildlife
like the Alexander Archipelago Islands Wolf, which exists nowhere else on earth, and black-tailed deer, grizzly bears, wolverines, black bears, timber wolves and bald eagles.
But oh, that’s right, Alaska aerial kills wolves and bears like they are rodents. We’re not going to get a lot of empathy for these critters out of the logging industry.
Finally this is a shady, cool, forest canopy. If it’s destroyed the area will dry out. There is a likelihood that the dried mosses, and needles could ignite no differently than down here.
Americans, the environment, the wildlife and their habitat are being swindled on this one. There is more natural resource wealth in the Tongass National Forest than will be made on lumber sales. Call your congress people before the door opens too wide on this one. It’s a real travesty.
Posted in Alaska, Animals in Peril, Bush Administration, Conservation, Earth, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environment and Jobs, Environmental Legislation, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Forest Service, Legislators, Logging, Morality, National Forest, Plants, Public Lands, Trees, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Wildlife | No Comments »
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
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I caught CNN report a national poll about the top 3 things people wanted president-elect Obama to tackle in the New Year.
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1. 77% of all people polled want something done about national health care.
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2. 75% of all people polled want something done about the environment.
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3. 70% of all people want to end the war in Iraq.
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I’m a little amazed. I’m not running into many of these people who want something done about the environment. Truth is not much can be done if we allow the Bush administration to continue against the environment the way they have been. If Bush is successful at lifting the obstacles to more drilling, mining, and lumbering and those industries move quickly to begin their projects, how will a new president be able to come in and simply put a halt to it?
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And Bush is moving toward that goal. According to the Wilderness Society, in the past few weeks the Bush administration has:
- Announced plans to lease iconic areas in Utah – including Desolation Canyon and greater Nine Mile Canyon – to the oil and gas industry;
- Released new oilshale plans that could affect up to 2 million acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming with this as yet unsafe and unproven technology;
- Made changes to the Endangered Species Act that would all but eliminate protections for fish, wildlife and forests; and
- Proposed to allow clearcut logging in ancient forests in Oregon.
Bush plans to remove critical scientific review of the impact of federal permits on endangered and threatened species. This will weaken the Endangered Species Act even further according to Care2.com’s petition site, which also stated that Bush is:
- Allowing the EPA to ignore unsafe levels of rocket fuel in drinking water that pose a risk to nearly 40 million Americans; and,
- Permitting more uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.
And Earthjustice reports that the fate of U.S. rivers, lakes and streams — and years of Earthjustice legal efforts — hang in the balance next month when the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether mining wastes can be dumped in an Alaska lake. This is bad because it sets a precedent for the mining industry in general to be able to dump what they don’t want/need into bodies of water like streams and rivers.
Clearly this is like a last minute corporate takeover of America. The heck with national forests, critters, birds, and fish in lieu of big dirty business like oil, mining, lumber. When we look at the anti-environmental moves of this exiting administration vs. numbers like 75% for the environment, it’s pretty evident we as citizens haven’t had much of an impact on Bush/Cheney, and waiting for a new president is too late.
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Contact your legislators, and/or email the White House that we want change for a clean future, that we love our land, national parks, animals, streams, rivers, and lakes. This should be a given for everyone in America, especially our leadership.Â
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Tags: Care2.com
Posted in CNN, Conservation, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environment and Jobs, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, Marine Life, Politics, Protecting Wetlands, Protesting Pollution, The Wilderness Society, Wildlife | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
The NRDC and other organizations like Greenpeace and Center for Biological Diversity have filed a suit against the Bush Administration again on behalf of the polar bear according to the NRDC. The polar bear is on the endangered list, but it seems its habitat is not. Soooo there is a lot of leeway (loopholes) in that plan for Big Oil.
The White House has been flooded with petitions to protect the polar bear and its habitat, but the NRDC and others have had to file suit even as Bush’s time in office is limited. Likewise, the Center for Biodiversity has a lawsuit against the Dept. of Interior, lead by good ole Dirk Kempthorne, for attempting to expand oil and gas development in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas or the “Polar Bear Seas.” It’s called the “Five Year Plan.” Real nice. In five years we should be on our way to oil independence.
It’s more tail chase logic. Allow oil companies to invade polar bear country with the industry that produces the fuel that emits CO2 fueling global warming that is melting the polar bear’s habitat in the first place. It’s another pretty package with little inside from the Bush administration. Apparently, we are to assume the package itself is a big portion of the actual present. And so goes this administration’s polar-bear-is-an-endangered-species offering that sounds right and just but turns right around and gives oil companies the upper hand in the Arctic.
An Arctic that is diminished with one million square miles, six times the size of California, melted away in the past 30 years. For those that want to argue this all happened before, well it wasn’t the Medieval Warming Period from somewhere in the 900’s-1300’s era. We’re a heck of a lot warmer now. According to New Scientist Environment website we might have to go back 6000 to 125,000 years to get as warm as we’re getting and it’s only going to get worse. This is not just natural phenomenon happening here. Anyway the difference between thousands of years ago and now is almost 7 billion people.
Look at the more dense population areas of the world. They are along the water. Take a pitcher of water with ice cubes in it and watch as they melt. No water level change, but add ice and that pitcher overflows. Imagine the scenario if all the ice that covers the land in our coldest regions slips into the surrounding water. That’s adding some mighty big ice cubes to our albeit mighty big oceans/seas but the pitcher will still overflow.
Big Oil’s intrusion in the Polar Bear Seas is adding insult to injury or in this case certain death to the polar bear. And it’s unnecessary. There are some 63 million acres of land leased for oil exploration that hasn’t been touched. The intruder polluters also endanger birds, fish, and other mammals with potential oil spills.
Organizations like the NRDC, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Center for Biodiversity, and others are making progress. Shell put off drilling in the Beaufort Sea off the Arctic Refuge coast for another year. Now if they can just hold the Bush Administration and Dirk Kempthorne at bay for oh, a couple of months, maybe a new administration will have a little more empathy for the polar bear and our environment.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11644
http://www.nrdc.org/naturesvoice/feature1.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081006.asp
Tags: Center for BioDiversity
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Arctic Oil Drilling, Dept. of the Interior, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environmental Legislation, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, Greenpeace, Legislators, Marine Life, Morality, NRDC, Oil Industry, Oil Lobby, Oil Spills, Polar Bears, Secy. Kempthorne, Shell | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 19th, 2008
“The Bush Administration announced it intends to withdraw its plan to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies,” according to an e-mail from NRDC. The wolves will once again be under federal protection.
It seems the Bush Administration erroneously declared the wolf populations fully recovered, nor could it be proven that the wolves were threatening deer and elk populations. Yet when the feds handed off control of wolves to the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 110 wolves were dead in no time.
The NRDC also stated: “That means Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will NOT be allowed to begin the extermination of hundreds of wolves this fall as part of a massive public hunt — the first in more than three decades. Instead, those wolves will continue to roam the Rockies — wild and free — as nature and the law intended!”
A big nose thumb to Butch Otter, Gov. of Idaho for wanting to be the first one to shoot a wolf. Congratulations to the thousands of people who worked to stop this illegal hunting. The NRDC, Earthjustice, and eleven other conservation groups took it to the courts and won.
This by no means is a sign to let our guard down. If things don’t change drastically in the future there will be another angle to sport hunt these animals down the road, especially if the state’s ever get that power in their hands again.
Sadly, this victory will not bring back Limpy, the crippled wolf icon of Yellowstone that was shot dead the moment it limped out of the park.
Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Illegal Hunting, NRDC, USFWS, Wolves, Yellowstone Park | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
If you’ve never heard of or viewed the panorama of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon area, do it. It is absolutely beautiful. I saw a travel channel segment on Zion National Park and want to visit there. It looks like a place of God. Our national parks are a real treasure, but the Bush administration doesn’t have much time left, and is trying for land grabs right out of OUR national parks to drill for oil.
If Bush has his way, oil drills will destroy eleven million acres of national park in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. I’m hearing about these attempted land grabs happening all over the place. What I want to know is what is the sense? We know we’re short of refineries in the U.S. It’s a well known fact every time the U.S. has an oil crisis, large or small, that right away we want to invade new areas and drill for more oil. But it’s of no use unless it’s refined, and we don’t have enough refineries.
And it’s not likely we’ll be seeing brand new refineries in the future because of global warming. And yes even the Bush/Cheney administration admitted quite a while ago in 2002 that humans do indeed cause global warming. The U.S. EPA submitted a 268-page report to the UN back then admitting to and agreeing with scientists that oil refining, fossil fuel power plants, and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.
It’s 2008. What aren’t they getting? I know what the Bush administration is getting–more neglectful of our rights when they simply try to take over public lands for nothing more than filling the pockets of the rich from oil production. Trashing these beautiful areas of our country will not sit well with a court system that has been standing for the environment in a number of cases so far.
According to an Earthjustice report, just recently another federal court judge ruled that: “After years of court battles, Kane County must halt its illegal efforts to create roadways through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other wilderness areas,” which is in another area of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. A U.S. District Judge “ordered the county to take down its signs inviting vehicles into areas closed to protect sensitive streams, wildlife habitat, archeological treasures, and wilderness values.”
This is good news but Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior, needs to hear from us again, even though he and the Bush administration know that attempts to drill in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon is going to meet with some mighty big resistance since this judge’s ruling.
http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/utahm00/xwnke5k44xx5mjj?
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/utah-county-must-stop-illegal-seizure-of-rights-of-way.html
Bush admits humans cause global warming: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html
Tags: Utah
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Bureau of Land Management, Bush Administration, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, EPA, Earthjustice, Environmental Spin, Environmentalism, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, National Forest, National Parks and Forests, Oil Industry, Oil Lobby, Public Lands, Public Lands, Secy. Kempthorne, The Denial Machine | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
I just got a letter from Earthjustice today about the polar bears. It seems that AGAIN the Bush/Cheney administration pulled a fast one with Dirk Kempthorne doing their bidding. They put the polar bears on the endangered list but didn’t provide any real protection for them or their habitat. How convenient for all the oil leaseholders.
There are holes in the judgment for the bears, so that big oil can still feasibly drill in polar bear habitat. You know, like most criminals, if this administration would just take the time to put as much effort in doing something good for our world and everything in it as they do to connive, cheat, steal, and mislead the public to do the exactly the opposite, they would go down in history as one of the better administrations in a time of great global need instead of hitting an all time low.
So according to Earthjustice, (who always catches up with their maneuverings), Representatives Jay Inslee and Maurice Hinchey introduced THE POLAR BEAR SEAS PROTECTION ACT last week to protect polar bear habitats until “essential environmental impact questions are answered and the Dept. of the Interior, [that would be Dirk] clearly designates critical, protected habitats.”
Let Congress know that you want this Act supported, and you want polar bears, their habitat, babies, grandbears, and great grandbears protected. I don’t know about anyone else but I am so sick and tired of chasing down this administration. It is like an evil child, like Damian of “The Omen” that pays little if any attention to ethics, and is manipulative and conniving to the point they just can’t be trusted. When they announce something good for the environment anymore, it looks like I’m not the only one looking around for the real angle.
This act covers some of the holes they’ve purposefully constructed. We’ve got polar bear allies in Congress that just need to hear from us—AGAIN.
Go to Earthjustice to send your message:
http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/polarbears_0508
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Arctic Oil Drilling, Bush Administration, Dept. of the Interior, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environmental Legislation, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Global Warming, Legislators, Morality, Oil Drilling, Oil Lobby, Oil Spills, Polar Bears, Secy. Kempthorne, Wildlife | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
From my e-mail, I read that Earthjustice attorneys filed a case to stop the wolf slaughter in the northern Rockies. A coalition of environmental and animal rights groups like the NRDC, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society urged Earthjustice to use its legal expertise to stop the killing immediately and “compel the federal government to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves until true recovery is achieved.
This didn’t come out of the blue. Earthjustice filed intent to challenge the decision to take wolves off the endangered list, but the USFWS didn’t answer. So now they go to court because as Earthjustice charges: “The USFWS failed to take into account basic principles of conservation biology, disregarded its own policies, and departed from past practice in delisting the wolf.” And Earthjustice will argue in court that the USFWS
- used an outdated and biologically inadequate standard for determining the number of wolves that must be protected in order to maintain a genetically viable population;
- ignored the agency’s own requirement that wolves in the northern Rockies’ core recovery populations must be connected and interbreed before they can be deemed recovered; and
- failed to take into account that state laws that currently govern the fate of the wolves in the absence of federal protections allow unregulated wolf killing.
What angers me most about this is the time and expense that goes into something like this that shouldn’t have happened in the first place in the U.S. of America. You know from my postings that petitions with signatures in the thousands hit the USFWS before the delisting, as well as, thousands of phone calls. Washington went ahead anyway, a total disregard for their responsibility to us—again. And none of this will bring Limpy or the other 19 wolves back.
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Dept. of the Interior, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Governor Otter, Humane Society Legislative Fund, Idaho, Illegal Hunting, Legislators, Morality, NRDC, Nature, Politics, Science, Secy. Kempthorne, Sport Hunting, The Sierra Club, USFWS, Wildlife, Wolves, Wyoming | 1 Comment »
