In late March the Bush administration's lead attorney at the Department of Interior issued a set of recommended changes to the Endangered Species Act that would gut key provisions of the Act and that reflect harmful legislation rejected by Congress in 2006. The administration's legal interpretation, posted on the Interior Department’s website, is an effort to prop up its failing legal efforts to  limit which species can be listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.   The administration has lost eight of ten court cases where it has used the argument that an endangered species could only be protected if it disappears from enough of its range to threaten its survival.

Outlining why this has such significance for conservation of threatened and endangered species in this country, Rep. Norm Dicks, House Appropriations Committee, told Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, "If you're only going to protect it in its current range, it's an incentive to unscrupulous people to minimize the range."

The administration's proposed changes would also likely eliminate protections for as many as 80 percent of the species currently protected by the Endangered Species Act, one of our country's legacy environmental laws.  The administration's attempt to change policy without citizen and scientific input or Congressional oversight, was not well-received by Congress, however.  Rep. Dicks told Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that the changes being considered are major and shouldn't be enacted without Congress' input.

"I told him we don't want to see a lot of things changed by rule," Rep. Dicks said, adding that he told Kempthorne, "If you're going to change the law send up a bill."

If you're wondering what you can do about the administration's backdoor efforts to gut the Act, there's plenty.  You can write your elected representatives, or write a letter to the editor. Tell them that you care about protecting our nation's biological heritage for future generations. Accordingly, it is important to maintain a strong and effective Endangered Species Act,  and any changes made to it should be approved by Congress and the American people.  You can also sign up for our action alert and newsletter. 

Key elements of Solicitors’ Recommendations:

• Obliterate the concept of historic habitat or range under the Endangered Species Act.  Had this interpretation been in place when the bald eagle, gray wolf, or grizzly bear were listed, they probably would not have been granted the protection that has made them such great success stories because healthy populations of these species existed in Alaska at the time.
• The new policy direction would likely encourage individuals to destroy habitat or kill species on their property if they think it may be listed under the Endangered Species Act in the future.  The Bush administration talks about its “cooperative conservation” approach to protecting and recovering species by working with private landowners.  However, this policy is actually a disincentive for landowners to conserve habitat.  For example, if a landowner has a Cooper’s hawk living in a tree on his property, and he is concerned that the hawk may at some point come under the protection of the Act, he would be encouraged to cut down the tree they were living in because, once down, under the administration’s policy, they would no longer be part of the hawk’s “current range.”
• A species would have to decline to the point where all populations of a species are headed toward extinction before the entire species can be listed as endangered.
• The Bush administration is attempting to gut the Endangered Species Act administratively after failing to change it legislatively.  A version of former Representative Richard Pombo’s 2006 “Extinction Bill” included a very similar provision which would have required that a species be imperiled "throughout all of its current range" before being listed.  Using this standard, not even the bald eagle would have qualified for listing.  The U.S. Senate recognized that this legislation would have severely weakened the Endangered Species Act and refused to consider it.  Using this “dark of night” tactic, the administration is attempting to overrule Congress.