Conservation Group Sues Interior Dept.
Seeks documents on endangered species decisions
WASHINGTON - A conservation group sued the Interior Department yesterday seeking documents about decisions on endangered species the group alleges were tainted by political pressure from a former high-ranking department official.
Julie MacDonald resigned as deputy assistant secretary in May amid questions about alleged interference in dozens of endangered species decisions, including at least one in which she stood to benefit financially.
The Center for Biological Diversity, in court papers, said the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service have failed to produce records on MacDonald and failed to respond to its requests in a timely fashion.
“This is a lawsuit we’ve been forced to file to receive documents that we’re entitled to that demonstrate the severity of Julie MacDonald’s involvement in overturning endangered species and habitat decisions,” said William Snape, the group’s senior counsel. Snape filed the suit under the Freedom of Information Act.
Hugh Vickery, a spokesman for the Interior Department, declined to comment on the lawsuit. But he said the department has responded to a variety of requests for information on MacDonald, including from the department’s inspector general and the House Natural Resources Committee.
“We’re cooperating with all the official inquiries,” Vickery said. “As for what specific information any group has or has not received, we have FOIA officers who go through this stuff.”
Last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection. The actions came after an investigation found the actions were tainted by political pressure from MacDonald, then the top official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The agency acknowledged that its actions had been “inappropriately influenced” and that “revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards.” The reversal affects the protection for species including the white-tailed prairie dog, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, and the Canada lynx.
MacDonald also was involved in a decision to remove protections for the Sacramento splittail, a fish found only in California’s Central Valley, where she owned an 80-acre farm on which the fish live. Biologists in the Sacramento field office had concluded the fish should remain on the threatened list, but they were overruled.
The lawsuit filed yesterday was one of a number of actions environmental groups are taking to determine what role MacDonald played in undermining decisions regarding endangered or threatened species.
Lawsuits filed last week ask federal judges to put the Fish and Wildlife Service under a deadline to review decisions to cut or deny critical habitat for 13 species, including a frog, a toad, seven plants, three snails, and a freshwater shrimp.
In all, lawsuits addressing 55 species have been or are expected to be filed in coming weeks.
“We think there is a much deeper, bigger problem than anyone has come to grips with,” Snape said. “It goes way beyond Julie MacDonald. What we are trying to figure out is how high up the Bush administration food chain this actually goes.”
This month a federal judge in Idaho said the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to use the best science when it denied protection to the sage grouse, a bird found in the inland West. Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered the agency to reconsider its decision, saying MacDonald’s role “taints” the decision.
© 2007 Associated Press
Wasn’t Cheney directly involved in a water issue in the Klamath region that led to the mass die-off of salmon? Is this not a crime?
If Rove is Bush’s brain then isn’t Cheney Bush’s dick?
hitting the’powers that be’in the pocketbook,IS the only thing they will pay any attention to…keep up the lawsuits and while your at it,throw impeachment on the table,as well.
Low level comments as above do not make the point any more acceptable. This is the typical American response to intellectual curiosity. If you have a complaint about business interests taking place in the government decisions, get involved publicly and support people in the next election who will have more integrity than is now displayed by this crooked regime in power.
But if you think that the Democrats are any better, I can reel off a list that makes them look no cleaner from Clintons all the way to any one runing for office accept perhaps Kucinich, who has integrity. Unless the special interests are removed the world will die, not only the endangered species.
The human being should now make the endangered species list. Its all about money, nothing more, just about money my foul mouthed friends. There is not one of you out there who is not protecting a 401K and the stock market. Wall street and the power elite will kill anything for profits. . .even you and your children!
Its up to you to get involved and change things while a little time is left!
you are correct,ike kay…mercy is not in their vocabulary…all things creeping,standing,breathing on this earth are targets of the’power elite’accuse the authors of evil and defend the human race and the creatures ,we were designated to protect…..do not go quietly,fight for our right to life….do not make the job of the ‘executioners’ so easy..curse their darkness and hold fast to the light.
Killing the environment for cash and favors IS the policy of Bu$h the inferior’s government. If the tort reform the Republicans wanted would have been passed in it’s entirety the pen would not be in the midst of an upgrade form those post election pardons.
All federal agencies including, Interior, Forest circus, and Commerce are headed by corporate lobbyist or corporate lawyers. The Fish & Wildlife Service controls and manipulates biological opinions and rewrites/edits scientific results to favor business and development. Additonally the Fish and Wildlife Service is under intense pressure from its political superiors to commit scientific fraud to avoid pissing off campaign contributors. And yes, Cheney and Rove did, in fact, interfere in the ruling against the Klamath River salmon to favor agricultural interest in Oregon. Here’s a link to bush’s war against federal scientist: www.bushgreenwatch.org
This poor excuse for a man has to be removed from office.
Just another department that Bushco corrupted in the name of greed and control.
Congress while changing its ideas imperceptibly now, its probably on the eve of being too late. We still hear from the Republican side offering the same foolish remarks from people like Inhofe of Oklahoma, his mind still embraces the values of Carousel and the old Hollywood that has created an American dream that has become the world’s nightmare.
I wrote on the night and morning of 9/11, a book about the terrorist attack and its response from Bush and the congress that has been born out by events. No one would publish it because it would be viewed than as seditious.
Some of the points that I made were that American freedoms would be compromised, that the so called war on terrorism should be put into the global communities hands at the UN; because the response and the resultant fabricated war on Iraq, created by a politics of fear, for reasons that were based on a Bush’s reelection and the huge amounts of money channeled into the hands of the Bush dynasty and their associated corporate friends. The entire war on terror was a lie and fabrication in the way it was handled and is still being handled, including this super agency Homeland Buffoonery.
But the most important point I made in that work was the greatest tragedy and crime of both Bin Laden and Bush and 9/11, was that they had cost the world eight precious years that kept the world and America from dealing with the most important danger of all, global warming and climate change. I was aware of the CO2 problem in 1988 and before from the research of James Hansen who is truly an American hero!
Now as a result of a few of us like Al Gore whose election was stolen by the Bush regime we are trying to reign in this monster of American excess and global destruction. To make matters worse we have now used China to produce all the trash we really don’t need. We have helped pollute their country and they are now the American Bankers supporting this false war. The USA has given them the money to buy South America and Africa and to continue their pollution, now surpassing that of the USA.
America must employ America and not China. The multi-nationals must be reigned in but it may be too late. The USA must lead the way in switching to alternative energy and not nuclear power! The road is open to a complete the economic switch and change in direction for the USA if Americans show courage. There is only one possibility for this to occur, the election of a new and different President that is not in the pockets of big business. Also a new congress with the defeat of the Jurassic politicians that are now in control both Democrat and Republican both owned by the corporate elite.
The problems of the above editorial and the fish that are on the endangered species list are nothing compared to what is really at stake. Humanity is now on the endangered species list and it is now up to the erudite people in the USA to take back America from Wall Street and corporate control that is only about money not about life. Keeping a person alive has more to do with love of life than it has to do with profit. Money is not the answer but love and life are and the USA is in the lead to killing most of it. This means control of the future is in yours, not industry! the money for elections must come from the government and politicians must be owned by the people and not owned by industry. The defeat of media another big business is a way to disseminate new ideas. It is new ideas that are necessary for the new year and nothing less.
Good luck to all!