ESA Under Fire
This Salon piece on the Bush administration's efforts to effectively gut the Endangered Species Act is startling, if depressingly unsurprising and not the first time this has happened.
From the lede:
The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining.
And, in case you doubt this administration's hostility toward endangered species, check this.
Species granted endangered status under the last 4 presidents:
Clinton - 521
Reagan - 253
Bush I - 234
George W. Bush - 57
(that's fewer than any administration in history, and each case had to be brought via lawsuit)
More on this later, after I do a little research - there's actually some interesting thinking going on in the enviro world re: how to improve the ESA and remove the current problems it's facing with private landowners and Measure 37-style calls for compensation.