Tweeters Archives

This was forwarded from the rehab list.

Peggi
>
> .c The Associated Press
>
> By SCOTT SONNER
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration increasingly is
> striking deals with states and private companies to protect fish
> and wildlife, ditching the Endangered Species Act as a regulatory
> club except in the most dire circumstances.
> The tactic landed the administration in hot water this spring
> with three federal judges who felt the law should have been used to
> protect jaguars in the Southwest, lynx in the Northwest and the
> Barton Springs salamander in Texas.
> It also has drawn heavy fire from environmentalists, who have
> grown increasingly critical of President Clinton's willingness to
> bargain away the law's stringent protections.
> ``We are seeing a very disturbing pattern here,'' said Mark
> Hubbard of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, a nonprofit
> conservation group based in Portland, Ore., that has sued the
> government for what it considers lax enforcement.
> ``We have gone from surprised to disappointed to just plain
> angry with the Clinton administration over their refusal to protect
> endangered species,'' he said.
> Architects of the administration's policy say negotiating with
> state and private land owners to save species makes sense in a
> political climate where property rights carry much weight.
> The carrot works better than the stick, they argue.
> ``It is not a win to see a species driven to the verge of
> extinction and then be able to save the last of that species by
> hammering someone with the Endangered Species Act,'' said Katie
> McGinty, director of the White House Council on Environmental
> Quality.
> The administration is using the law ``to its fullest and most
> creative extent and reaching out to save those rare ecosystems by
> working in partnership with people who own the land,'' McGinty
> said.
> By year's end, the administration will have negotiated habitat
> conservation plans covering more than 18 million acres of state and
> privately owned land.
> Such pragmatism is no virtue in the eyes of Clinton's
> environmental critics.
> ``Essentially it is a new way to get around enforcing the
> Endangered Species Act,'' Sierra Club lobbyist Melinda Pierce said
> of the habitat conservation plans.
> ``It's just feel-good politics. They have junked the law,'' said
> Mike Bader of the Missoula, Mont.-based Alliance for the Wild
> Rockies, which wants federal protection for the bull trout in the
> northern Rocky Mountains.
> Environmentalists' biggest beef is with a ``no surprises''
> clause in the habitat conservation plans, which promises land
> owners that if they fulfill protection criteria, they'll be
> insulated from any future federal conservation requirements.
> ``It's the only way companies would ever enter into such
> agreements,'' said Chris West, vice president of the Northwest
> Forestry Association in Portland, Ore.
> In March, federal judges in Arizona, Texas and Washington state
> chided the administration for refusing to order protection for the
> jaguar, Barton Springs salamander and lynx.
> In the case of the jaguar, the Fish and Wildlife Service was
> ordered to declare the rare cat endangered and set aside land to
> protect it.
> In Washington, the agency was told to reconsider its decision to
> keep the lynx off the list; only a few hundred of the cats remain
> in a handful of states.
> ``The Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently ignored the
> analysis of its expert biologists,'' wrote U.S. District Judge
> Gladys Kessler in Seattle.
> In Austin, U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton ruled that Interior
> Secretary Bruce Babbitt had violated the Endangered Species Act
> after ``strong political pressure was applied to the secretary to
> withdraw the proposed listing of the salamander.''
> Babbitt subsequently declared the salamander threatened. But
> environmentalists were up in arms again when the National Marine
> Fisheries Service decided April 25 against federal protection for
> Oregon's coastal coho salmon, opting instead to give the state a
> chance to try its own $30 million recovery plan with support from
> the timber industry.
> Environmentalists say an industry pledge to log more responsibly
> and to help restore damaged stream beds was little consolation for
> the Oregon coastal coho, whose stock has dropped from as many as
> 1.4 million in the early 1900s to about 80,000 today.
> ``Many of these coho runs are dangerously close to extinction
> and need protection right now,'' said Ken Rait, conservation
> director for the Oregon Natural Resources Council.
> ``The Clinton administration has surpassed the Bush
> administration in both their zeal to change the Endangered Species
> Act and their reluctance to implement it,'' said Bader, a former
> park ranger at Yellowstone National Park.
> But George Frampton Jr., a former president of The Wilderness
> Society who was an assistant interior secretary in Clinton's first
> term, calls the environmental community ``totally out to lunch on
> the Endangered Species Act.''
> ``A listing alone, that and a quarter is going to get you a cup
> of coffee,'' said Frampton.
> Frampton said the fewest complaints about the habitat
> conservation plans are heard among conservationists in California,
> where wildlife habitat is threatened most by development.
> ``Environmentalists in Southern California know that anything we
> don't get protected today will be paved over in 20 years. So if we
> can save 300,000 or 400,000 acres of habitat for species, they look
> at that as a tremendous victory,'' he said.
> ``More than 70 percent of all critical habitat is on private
> land,'' McGinty said. She said that without habitat conservation
> plans, ``none of these species would receive protection until they
> are on the brink of extinction.''
> Currently, 1,081 plant and animal species are protected as
> threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
> The Clinton administration has added 305 species to the list,
> compared with 228 during the four-year Bush administration and 257
> during the eight-year Reagan administration, said Interior
> Department spokeswoman Lisa Guide.
> Nearly 400 habitat conservation plans have been approved or
> developed in the past four years. They affect tracts ranging from
> one-half acre to 2 million acres, last as long as a century and
> cover up to 100 species. >>
>
>
>---------------------
>Forwarded message:
>From: AOLNewsProfiles at aol.net
>Date: 97-05-04 12:47:12 EDT
>
><HTML><PRE>.c The Associated Press</PRE></HTML>
>
> By SCOTT SONNER
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration increasingly is
>striking deals with states and private companies to protect fish
>and wildlife, ditching the Endangered Species Act as a regulatory
>club except in the most dire circumstances.
> The tactic landed the administration in hot water this spring
>with three federal judges who felt the law should have been used to
>protect jaguars in the Southwest, lynx in the Northwest and the
>Barton Springs salamander in Texas.
> It also has drawn heavy fire from environmentalists, who have
>grown increasingly critical of President Clinton's willingness to
>bargain away the law's stringent protections.
> ``We are seeing a very disturbing pattern here,'' said Mark
>Hubbard of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, a nonprofit
>conservation group based in Portland, Ore., that has sued the
>government for what it considers lax enforcement.
> ``We have gone from surprised to disappointed to just plain
>angry with the Clinton administration over their refusal to protect
>endangered species,'' he said.
> Architects of the administration's policy say negotiating with
>state and private land owners to save species makes sense in a
>political climate where property rights carry much weight.
> The carrot works better than the stick, they argue.
> ``It is not a win to see a species driven to the verge of
>extinction and then be able to save the last of that species by
>hammering someone with the Endangered Species Act,'' said Katie
>McGinty, director of the White House Council on Environmental
>Quality.
> The administration is using the law ``to its fullest and most
>creative extent and reaching out to save those rare ecosystems by
>working in partnership with people who own the land,'' McGinty
>said.
> By year's end, the administration will have negotiated habitat
>conservation plans covering more than 18 million acres of state and
>privately owned land.
> Such pragmatism is no virtue in the eyes of Clinton's
>environmental critics.
> ``Essentially it is a new way to get around enforcing the
>Endangered Species Act,'' Sierra Club lobbyist Melinda Pierce said
>of the habitat conservation plans.
> ``It's just feel-good politics. They have junked the law,'' said
>Mike Bader of the Missoula, Mont.-based Alliance for the Wild
>Rockies, which wants federal protection for the bull trout in the
>northern Rocky Mountains.
> Environmentalists' biggest beef is with a ``no surprises''
>clause in the habitat conservation plans, which promises land
>owners that if they fulfill protection criteria, they'll be
>insulated from any future federal conservation requirements.
> ``It's the only way companies would ever enter into such
>agreements,'' said Chris West, vice president of the Northwest
>Forestry Association in Portland, Ore.
> In March, federal judges in Arizona, Texas and Washington state
>chided the administration for refusing to order protection for the
>jaguar, Barton Springs salamander and lynx.
> In the case of the jaguar, the Fish and Wildlife Service was
>ordered to declare the rare cat endangered and set aside land to
>protect it.
> In Washington, the agency was told to reconsider its decision to
>keep the lynx off the list; only a few hundred of the cats remain
>in a handful of states.
> ``The Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently ignored the
>analysis of its expert biologists,'' wrote U.S. District Judge
>Gladys Kessler in Seattle.
> In Austin, U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton ruled that Interior
>Secretary Bruce Babbitt had violated the Endangered Species Act
>after ``strong political pressure was applied to the secretary to
>withdraw the proposed listing of the salamander.''
> Babbitt subsequently declared the salamander threatened. But
>environmentalists were up in arms again when the National Marine
>Fisheries Service decided April 25 against federal protection for
>Oregon's coastal coho salmon, opting instead to give the state a
>chance to try its own $30 million recovery plan with support from
>the timber industry.
> Environmentalists say an industry pledge to log more responsibly
>and to help restore damaged stream beds was little consolation for
>the Oregon coastal coho, whose stock has dropped from as many as
>1.4 million in the early 1900s to about 80,000 today.
> ``Many of these coho runs are dangerously close to extinction
>and need protection right now,'' said Ken Rait, conservation
>director for the Oregon Natural Resources Council.
> ``The Clinton administration has surpassed the Bush
>administration in both their zeal to change the Endangered Species
>Act and their reluctance to implement it,'' said Bader, a former
>park ranger at Yellowstone National Park.
> But George Frampton Jr., a former president of The Wilderness
>Society who was an assistant interior secretary in Clinton's first
>term, calls the environmental community ``totally out to lunch on
>the Endangered Species Act.''
> ``A listing alone, that and a quarter is going to get you a cup
>of coffee,'' said Frampton.
> Frampton said the fewest complaints about the habitat
>conservation plans are heard among conservationists in California,
>where wildlife habitat is threatened most by development.
> ``Environmentalists in Southern California know that anything we
>don't get protected today will be paved over in 20 years. So if we
>can save 300,000 or 400,000 acres of habitat for species, they look
>at that as a tremendous victory,'' he said.
> ``More than 70 percent of all critical habitat is on private
>land,'' McGinty said. She said that without habitat conservation
>plans, ``none of these species would receive protection until they
>are on the brink of extinction.''
> Currently, 1,081 plant and animal species are protected as
>threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
> The Clinton administration has added 305 species to the list,
>compared with 228 during the four-year Bush administration and 257
>during the eight-year Reagan administration, said Interior
>Department spokeswoman Lisa Guide.
> Nearly 400 habitat conservation plans have been approved or
>developed in the past four years. They affect tracts ranging from
>one-half acre to 2 million acres, last as long as a century and
>cover up to 100 species.
> AP-NY-05-04-97 1238EDT
> <HTML><PRE> Copyright 1997 The
>Associated Press. The information
>contained in the AP news report may not be published,
>broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without
>prior written authority of The Associated Press.
></PRE></HTML>
>
>
>To edit your profile, go to keyword NewsProfiles.
>For all of today's news, go to keyword News.
>.-
>
>
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"