A slow holiday-weekend Sunday, but Post environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin's gets page-one, above-the-fold treatment in reporting that the Bush administration is "succeeding in reshaping" the Endangered Species Act in ways legislative action has so far been unable to do. Interior Secretary Gail A. Norton's "new environmentalism" has led to changes "which have ranged from recalculating the economic costs of protecting critical habitats to limiting the number of species added to the protected list," she writes. Needless to say, perhaps, environmentalists see a gutting and mawling of the statute, Interior P.R. officials just a more efficient way of getting to the same end goals. Some stats Eilperin sites: 9.5 species listed a year under President Bush, compared with 65 a year under the Clinton administration and 59 a year under Bush I. "Critical habitat" designations given "only half the acreage recommended by federal biologists." And key decision-making authorities transferred from U.S. Fish and Wildlife to "other agencies with different priorities." See an abstract at:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/658482151.html?did=658482151&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Jul+4%2C+2004&author=Juliet+Eilperin&desc=Endangered+Species+Act%27s+Protections+Are+Trimmed