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Group gives out endangered species condoms for Valentine's Day

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Obama administration scraps Bush logging plan

By GottaLaff

That's what we're talkin' about:

The Obama administration on Thursday scrapped the Bush administration's last-ditch attempt to boost logging in Northwest forests by scaling back protection for the northern spotted owl.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday that a plan to increase logging on federal lands in western Oregon could not stand up to challenges under the Endangered Species Act. He said the Department of Interior would develop new measures protecting the spotted owl.

Removing the Bush stain makes you feel clean and sparkly all over.

Undoing BushCo: Obama reverses endangered species rules

By GottaLaff

Good news abounds these days:

President Obama’s administration has reversed a controversial last-minute rule made by the Bush administration that critics said would have undermined protections for endangered species.

The rule, put in place in the waning days of the Bush administration, would have allowed federal agencies to determine on their own whether their actions would impact threatened or endangered species, bypassing two federal agencies that otherwise administer the Endangered Species Act.

The rule also would have narrowed the scope of actions subject to review and limited consultations government agencies could have made on issues surrounding global warming.

Rolling back the rule will require federal agencies to once again check with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before taking action that could harm species in trouble.

What's that strange feeling I'm getting?

Got it. I can breathe again.

Environmental groups had contended the Bush-era rule would have taken science out of agencies’ decisions. Groups like the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife hailed the decision. [...]

Business groups, meanwhile, have objected to rolling back the Bush administration decisions, arguing that the consultation process bogs down projects and adds unnecessary and untenable costs.

Eradicating the Ugly Bush Stain: Obama Restoring Endangered Species Act Provision

By GottaLaff

There have been so many toxic stains set into the fabric of our nation, and they were all forced on us by BushCo. Remember this one? Thank goodness President Obama found some Shout:

Today President Obama will restore rules requiring U.S. agencies consult with independent federal experts to determine if their actions might harm threatened and endangered species, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified, marking yet another reversal of President Bush's environmental legacy. [...]

The move, the official said, "will restore the status quo ante and allow the Interior and Commerce Departments to determine whether a new rule should be promulgated that will again codify the longstanding consultation practice under the" Endangered Species Act.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.V.), who had decried the Bush rule and had been trying to reverse it through the legislative process, hailed Obama's decision.

"I wholeheartedly support the president's proposal to restore the protections for endangered species that the Bush administration spent so many years trying to undermine," Rahall said in an interview. "It is one more indication that the new administration truly represents change for the better and is committed to the protection of our natural resources and our environment. I think we know who would have been the winner in this fox guarding the hen house scenario advanced by the Bush administration, and it would not be the hens."

The ugly Bush stain: Gray wolves edition

By GottaLaff

One more time, BushCo sets out to be killers of both the environment and animal life (not to mention human life). Here they go again, squeezing in more destruction before they leave office (in five, count 'em, five days):

Bush administration officials said Wednesday that they would remove gray wolves in the Midwest and the northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list -- the latest, but probably not last, chapter in the wolf's on-again, off-again federal protection.

The Interior Department decision would apply to wolves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Idaho and Montana. It would maintain protections for wolves in Wyoming, where the department says state officials haven't done enough to ensure the wolves' continued recovery.

An Interior Department official told reporters that the decision represented a victory for conservation efforts.

But the move, less than a week before President Bush leaves office, could be short-lived. Environmental groups hope President-elect Barack Obama will quickly reverse it after his inauguration. If he doesn't, the groups, which have blocked previous efforts to delist the wolf in court, say they'll sue again.

In this case, sue-age is a good thing.

The ugly Bush stain: Interior Dep't. tainted nearly every decision on endangered species

By GottaLaff

This ugly Bush stain isn't from one of his New Rules. No, this one has some major history and is one of the biggest, ugliest, most horrendous stains imaginable:

A high-ranking Interior Department official tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years, a new inspector general report finds, concluding she exerted improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought.

Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service, did pervasive harm to the department's morale and integrity and may have risked the well-being of species with her agenda, Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney said in his report out Monday.

Okay, stop right there. "May have risked the well-being of species with her agenda". Species. In other words, she played god. But her god isn't kind and loving. Her god kills in huge numbers. How's that for compassion?

The Interior Department last year reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found that MacDonald had applied political pressure in those cases. The new report looked at nearly two dozen other endangered species decisions not examined in the earlier report. It found MacDonald directly interfered with at least 13 decisions and indirectly affected at least two more.

MacDonald, a civil engineer with no formal training in natural sciences, resigned in May 2007. Department employees reported that they used her name as a verb — encountering political interference from senior managers was called "getting MacDonalded."

I'd like to tell her to get Cheney'd.

She resigned weeks after the report by Devaney last year found that she broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups. That report also said MacDonald censored science and mistreated staff.

What a perfect person to have been given unlimited power over living beings, including her own staff.

The new investigation reaffirmed those findings and said MacDonald's influence was even more far-reaching. It also faulted her boss, former Assistant Secretary Craig Manson, as well as several other high-ranking Interior officials, including Randal Bowman, a special assistant to Manson, and Thomas Graf, a department lawyer. [...]

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said the findings "paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the Interior Department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds."

She should be dropped off at the North Pole. Let's see if she does as well as the polar bears.

The ugly Bush stain: Endangered Species Act edition

By GottaLaff

I guess using Shout didn't work on this one yet. What passes for New Rules are nothing more than toxic tailpipe emissions billowing from multiple Bush orifices, including the hole in his tiny little head:

The Bush administration on Thursday eliminated 35-year-old regulations in the Endangered Species Act that required an independent scientific review of proposed federal projects to determine whether they imperil protected plants and animals.

Instead, federal agencies undertaking projects like road and power plant construction or oil and gas drilling will make their own assessment. Without the independent reviews, such projects could be accelerated.

As part of the changes announced by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in the final days of the Bush administration, the department finalized an interim rule that allows oil and gas drilling in polar bear habitat off Alaska's coast. The rule change is designed to prevent the Endangered Species Act from being used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, essentially making climate change policy. [...]

H. Dale Hall, director of Fish and Wildlife, said he had concerns about how fast the estimated 235,000 public comments were processed. Staff assigned to the job spent eight hours a day tabulating the comments. Working under strict time restraints, agency employees had nine seconds to read each letter, according to one calculation.

Officials said that more than 200,000 of the comments opposed the rule change. [...]

President-elect Barack Obama said he would reverse the rule changes, as have some members of Congress. But that requires a lengthy rule-making process. In the House, members can invoke the rarely used Congressional Review Act to overturn the regulations.

I'm sure Also Palin is thrilled. She was never a big fan of polar bears.

Humane Society endorses Obama, doesn't like Palin

By GottaLaff

She doesn't care about the dwindling number of polar bears (due to that pesky, non-existent global warming), she advocates shooting wolves from airplanes, she has an affinity for moose meat... So what's not to like?

Humane Society breaks tradition, endorses

The animal lovers' group goes with Obama, and seem to have been particularly turned off by Palin.

The choice for animals is especially clear now that Palin is in the mix. If Palin is put in a position to succeed McCain, it could mean rolling back decades of progress on animal issues.