I think we all owe Rob Gordon and The National Wilderness Institute a
great big thank
you for all they are doing to bring attention to what is happening with
the Endangered
Species Act and Clear Water Act to the people in the east as well as all
over the USA.
You might want to visit their web site http://www.nwi.org/ and review
all the
projects that they are working on.


http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1010620000776584920.htm

January 10, 2002

Endangering the Beltway

So now we understand why Eastern urbanites and Washington politicians
continue to extol that broken-down law known as the Endangered Species
Act.
It doesn't apply to them.

Or perhaps we should say, it didn't apply to them. Consider the lawsuit
over
the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, a multibillion-dollar project meant to
ease
gnarled traffic around Washington, D.C.'s fabled Beltway.

It turns out that even though construction could imperil several
endangered
species, including the bald eagle, bureaucrats at federal agencies --
from
Fish & Wildlife to the National Marine Fisheries Service (organizations
that
usually delight in environmental laws) -- had quickly waved through the
project. The hypocrisy is so blatant that the National Wilderness
Institute,
a group usually critical of the Endangered Species Act, has felt
compelled
to sue to halt the project. The government, of all people, is fighting
back.

It seems that Washington politicians and commuters are shocked --
shocked --
that an ESA lawsuit is being used so blatantly to halt human activity.
Shortly after the National Wilderness Institute sued, then-Virginia
Attorney
General Mark Earley said that the suit was "disturbing to anyone who has

ever had to sit in a traffic jam on the old bridge." Good point. Come to

think of it, we're pretty sure Western and rural landowners would agree.


The Endangered Species Act was passed nearly 30 years ago in a show of
bipartisan good intentions, to help animals on the brink of extinction.
But
since that time, environmental groups have hijacked the act, turning it
into
a bludgeon by which they can enforce their vision of a development-free
America. It's rural parts of the country, where small landowners lack
deep
pockets and political clout, that bear the brunt.

The ESA's capricious and uneven enforcement only underscores the utter
bankruptcy of the law. According to a 1999 report from the House
Resources
Committee, while 543 species were listed in the five Far West states,
only
39 were listed in the Northeast. Critical habitats were designated for
96
species in the West, for just nine in the East. Fish & Wildlife spends
more
than half its ESA budget in just five Western states alone. Funny how
all of
those "endangered" animals choose to live in only one-half of the
country.

Westerners know from long experience that the ESA is no longer about
saving
animals, but a legal pretext for stopping lives and livelihoods. Take
the
recent case in Oregon, where, thanks to some successful hatchery
programs,
there have been impressive new populations of ESA-listed coho salmon.
Yet
when a move was made to delist the fish, environmentalists argued that
hatchery salmon were different from "wild" salmon -- which must remain
listed. But activists were craven enough to admit that the real issue
was
that delisting coho would allow logging to proceed on previously
off-limits
areas.

The misuse and power struggles have become so intense that the act
itself is
paralyzed. The government spends so much time and money defending itself

from specious litigation, mostly by environmental groups, that there's
little left to actually devote to flora or fauna. The situation is such
a
shambles that in order to get anything done the Bush Administration has
had
to cut a deal: The Interior Department would put money into actually
helping
the 29 species most in danger of extinction in return for environmental
groups giving it a breather from lawsuits over hundreds more species.

Meanwhile, urban hypocrisy rolls on. The Wilderness Institute is also
suing
over the Washington Aqueduct -- the D.C.-area water treatment facility.
For
years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dumped sludge from the
facility
into the Potomac River at levels hundreds of times that allowed in
nearby
states. The practice potentially violates both the ESA and the Clean
Water
Act, but the EPA continues to grant the Corps special dispensation.

"Regardless of your political disposition, midnight dumping into an
endangered species habitat is unacceptable. What's going on here is
arbitrary, capricious, politically motivated and not scientifically
justifiable," says Rob Gordon, director of the Wilderness Institute.

Given the refusal of Senate liberals to deal with such easy
environmental
calls as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it seems too
much
to hope that ESA reform will happen any time soon. But in the meantime
there's some satisfaction in knowing the Woodrow Wilson bald eagles have

come home to roost.

:usa: