Hypocrisy 101--Republicans are gung go about protecting the flag as it is a symbol of the United States. But, they want to pull the teeth out of the Endangered Species Act. If it wasn't for the Endangered Species Act, the Bald Eagle, another great symbol of the United States, would have gone extinct twenty five years ago.

With only a few months left in office, everyone's favorite administration is trying to do as many favors for the moneyed interests they serve as they can. Bush and friends are now attempting to gut the Endangered Species Act. Why? Because it is possible that the Endangered Species Act may be used in order place limits on Greenhouse Gas emissions, and this would affect Bush's friends and masters in the oil and energy sector. In the Republican religion, all regulation of private enterprise is evil, regardless of the possible adverse affects of private enterprise on the environment, society, public health, or the untouchable and unmentionable poor.
Bush Keeps Good Company: Here he is with best friends Vladimir Putin and Hú Jǐntāo Paramount leader of the Peoples Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. They are on their way to a tyrants only pajama party.

But exactly how does Bush and friends want to change the Endangered Species Act? They want to remove the regulation that forces federal agencies to consult with scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before they give the go ahead on projects that may harm endangered species or habitats.

Oh, but there is more!

However, the new regulations would:
1. Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered
Species Act;
2. Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight;
3. Limit which effects can be considered harmful;
4. Prevent consideration of a project's contribution to global warming;
5. Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project
in the instances when they are invited to participate -- or else the project
gets an automatic green light;
6. Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into
hundreds of small projects;
7. Limit protection of a species only to where it is currently found.

Here is the funniest part. These are administrative changes, so they do not require a congressional vote--where the changes would undoubtedly fail. In order to limit public reaction and debate on the issue, e-mailed and faxed comments will not be accepted. So if you want to tell these robber barons what you think of their proposed deregulation of the Endangered Species Act

Comments will only be accepted via:
1. Through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at,
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitCo
mment&o=09000064806c5826
Follow the instructions on the web site for submitting comments.

2. By U.S. Mail to Public Comment Processing, Attention: 1018-AT50,
Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, 4401 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 222, Arlington, VA 22203.

3. Alternatively, go to the NRDC switchboard at
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/awetzler/update_comment_period_on_th
e_b.html and use sign their letter or paste your own. The NRDC Action
Fund will collect, print and submit comments directly to the government at
the close of the comment period.

Why is it important that if you care about this you have to do this ASAP? Because in order to shove these big business-serving revisions down the throat of the unsuspecting public, they have shortened the normal 90-comment period to just 30 days! You must make your feelings known by September 15.

Here is a pretty sample letter:

Sample Letter:
Mr. Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary
Department of the Interior
Dear Secretary Kempthorne,

I am writing to urge you to stop the changes to longstanding regulations implementing
the Endangered Species Act you recently proposed. These changes would drastically
weaken the interagency consultation provision of the Endangered Species Act -- widely
considered the most important and effective provision of the Act -- and also undercut the
Endangered Species Act's proper role in addressing the impacts of climate change on our
nation's most imperiled wildlife.

For 35 years the Endangered Species Act has protected imperiled species from the effects
of potentially harmful federal projects. The strength of the Endangered Species Act has
been the checks and balances created by interagency consultation between federal
agencies as they pursue projects, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine
Fisheries Services, whose primary responsibility is the conservation of endangered
species.

Interagency consultation ensures that federal experts independently review federal
projects that may impact America’s most imperiled fish and wildlife and that project
modifications are made where necessary. The proposed regulations would eliminate
interagency consultation on thousands of federal projects that pose a risk to endangered
and threatened species each year and transfer the responsibility to protect fish and
wildlife to agencies with no or little knowledge or expertise in fish or wildlife protection.
Furthermore, some agencies' interests could be directly at odds with the well being of
endangered species.

By eliminating or reducing the consultation processes long embedded in the law, the
proposed rules remove essential safeguards, including independent scientific review. In
essence, the rules replace science with politics. They will almost certainly result in
detrimental impacts on endangered and imperiled species and increase the likelihood that
opportunities to avoid such impacts are overlooked.

Notwithstanding the fact that these are the most significant changes to regulations
implementing the Endangered Species Act in more than 20 years, you have provided the
public just 30 days in which to submit comments, not the traditional 90, and prevented
anyone from sending their comments by e-mail.

I request you set an additional 60 days to allow the public an opportunity to meaningfully
comment on these proposed regulations.

I also urge you to not to finalize these regulatory changes.

Thank you.

[Source]

For those Americans who are still up in the air about you are going to vote for in November...really, you still don't know who like better? When Obama was asked about the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, he vowed to repeal the changes. McCain? He had no comment. Then again, we all know where McCain's heart lies.

Goddamn I hate these real posts,

--El Tiburon

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