Bush Trying His Best To Eliminate Endangered Species

Does it tear at your heart when the news reports there are only 1,600 pandas left in the world or that the habitat of a rare bird is being encroached upon by developers. Well for George Bush, something like that only emboldens him to make endangered species permanently extinct as fast as he can. With only two months to go in his Presidency, they are working on gutting the Endangered Species Act and his chief official hack White House Press Secretary is busy spinning away the consequences.

From ThinkProgress:

The Associated Press reports today that, as part of its long-fought campaign to gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Bush administration is pushing a last-minute regulatory change that would significantly weaken the ESA:

The rules would eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, [by allowing] the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself whether a project would be likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

At today’s White House press conference, a reporter asked if the Associated Press had accurately described the proposed regulatory change. Perino responded first by saying she didn’t have the documentation with her, but suggested that the rule change would have little effect because the ESA doesn’t help protect “any species, including ours” anyway:

PERINO: I don’t have [the documentation] with me. I know conceptually what we support. And I know that the Endangered Species Act is a tangled web that doesn’t actually help support any species, including our own. …

Q: (Laughter) So you’re proposing eliminating it?

PERINO: No.

TP has more in their article, but basically Perino is lying her ass off about the ESA. Scientists and biologists would be taken out of the equation and only political stooges left to decide the fate of our biosphere.

Sometimes I wonder how Dana's soul handles what her mouth spews out but then I remember, it was a prerequisite to sell it before getting her current job.

So What If The Bald Eagle Goes Extinct?

Let's face it, bald eagles, salamanders, owls, herons, minnows, sturgeons and hundreds of other varieties of animals and plants that are on the endangered species list have become a major pain....to big business. These American creatures get in the way of mining operations, clear-cutting forests, mountain top removal and developers looking to profit off the land. What's the problem if a couple of species disappeared so that a few rich people can get richer? That's the reason we voted for George Bush, right? Well thanks to our Pretzeldent, we can look forward to a nice gutting of the Endangered Species Act.

From TPM:

If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1988. They would accomplish through regulations what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

Oh, are you concerned that we are destroying our national wildlife without any regard for the planet we live on? Wiping out innocent animals and the plants they (including us) eat that maintains a healthy ecosystems isn't your thing? Well don't worry, because the Bush Administration says individual federal agencies can determine on their own if things are copacetic without the Endangered Species Act. You believe them right? Of course George Bush would never lie to you.