Daily Kos: Interior Dept. hollows out the Endangered Species Act

by smintheus

Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 01:54:23 PM PDT

The Bush administration Interior Department has long been waging a war against the Endangered Species Act. The high cost of implementing the ESA by designating critical habitats, they claim, gets in the way protecting newly endangered species. It turns out that it gets in the way of business, too, which has been of critical concern to Bush's appointees in Interior.

Unable to dismantle the ESA, and forced by persistent lawsuits to implement it, Interior Dept. officials have been busy trying to hollow out the enforcement mechanisms by which it can be obliged to designate new species and new habitats for protection.