August, 28 2008, 02:00pm EDT
Motion Filed to Extend Review of Endangered Desert Nesting Bald Eagle
PHOENIX
Conservationists and American Indians filed a court request Wednesday requesting an extension of a deadline for protecting Arizona's desert nesting bald eagle
to allow Arizona's Indian nations, communities, and tribes time to
demonstrate that the eagle's historical range is more extensive than
acknowledged by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Service's removal of the eagle's Endangered Species Act protections
was reversed in March by U.S. District Court Judge Mary Murguia. The
judge ordered the Service to immediately reinstate protections and
provide a new evaluation and decision by December 5th. Wednesday's
motion, which seeks to extend the decision to October 12th, 2009,
enjoys support from Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and the Fort
McDowell Yavapai Nation, and is unopposed by the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
"The desert nesting bald eagle population
is highly threatened and entirely distinct from other bald eagle
populations," said Dr. Robin Silver, co-founder and board member of the
Center for Biological Diversity and vice president of Maricopa Audubon.
"Today's request affords Indian people time to determine the eagle's
historical range - before we lost 90 percent of the riparian areas it
depends on."
To date, support for Endangered
Species Act protection for Arizona's desert nesting bald eagle has been
filed by the following organizations and desert nesting bald eagle
experts (click to see the letters): The Raptor Research Foundation, Arizona Audubon, Center for Biological Diversity, Richard Glinski, Robert Magill, Steve Hoffman, Ron Horejsi, E. Linwood Smith, Robert Ohmart, R. William Mannan, Robert Steidl, Clayton White, William Mader, John Gunn, and Rich Erman.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department has also rejected the Fish and
Wildlife Service's refusal to recognize the population's designation as
a "distinct population segment."
Wednesday's
motion was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Maricopa
Audubon, the Intertribal Council of Arizona, and the Salt River
Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Attorneys Dan Rohlf of Lewis &
Clark Law School Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, Justin
Augustine of the Center for Biological Diversity, and Howard Shanker of
Flagstaff represent the Center and Maricopa Audubon in this case.
Background
Only about 60 breeding pairs of desert nesting bald eagles survive.
They are reproductively, geographically, biologically, and behaviorally
distinct from all other bald eagle populations, and occupy uniquely hot
and dry habitat. Unique populations and their habitat qualify for
Endangered Species Act protection with a designation as a "distinct
population segment."
Increasing habitat threats
represent the gravest risk to nesting eagles in Arizona, mostly because
of increasing groundwater pumping drying up streamside nesting habitat.
The Endangered Species Act is the only law that protects the habitat of
imperiled wildlife.
On October 6, 2004, the
Center and Maricopa Audubon filed a petition requesting increased
protection for the bald eagle in Arizona. The petition was based on
evidence of increasing threats to habitat and presentation of data from
a suppressed Arizona Game and Fish Department study that demonstrated
likely extinction of nesting bald eagles from Arizona in 57 to 82
years. Future extinction is likely in spite of recent population gains,
due to high mortalities of juveniles and adults.
On August 30, 2006, the Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the petition
by the Center and Maricopa Audubon, and on July 9, 2007, it removed
Endangered Species Act protection from all bald eagles nationwide. On
January 4, 2007, the Center and Maricopa Audubon filed a lawsuit in
federal court challenging the rejection of the petition and inclusion
of Arizona's desert nesting bald eagle in the nationwide removal of
Endangered Species Protection. The San Carlos Apache Tribe,
Yavapai-Apache Nation, Tonto Apache Tribe, Fort McDowell Yavapai
Nation, and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community all joined the
lawsuit to help protect the desert nesting bald eagle.
On March 5, 2008, Murguia reversed the Service's 2006 petition
rejection, calling it "arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to law."
She also reinstated Endangered Species Act protection for the eagle and
its habitat in Arizona and ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to
complete a re-evaluation of its 2006 decision within nine months, by
December 5th.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Rights Groups Argue Trump Orders Have 'Murdered Over 210 Civilians With No Sound Legal or Moral Basis'
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Civil rights groups squared off against the Trump administration in a New York federal court on Wednesday, with the former seeking to compel the release of a secret Department of Justice memo being used to justify illegal bombings of alleged narco-trafficking boats and the latter claiming executive privilege in a bid to avert the document's disclosure.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and then reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force against them. Last July, the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a classified opinion providing the legal rationale for the strikes, which international law experts around the world contend are illegal acts of murder and possibly war crimes or even crimes against humanity.
The ACLU, New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argued in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that the Trump administration cannot conceal its legal justification for boat strikes from the American people while repeatedly referring to it.
“People across the country, politicians across the aisle, and the families of victims have been demanding answers as to how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of civilians,” ACLU National Security Project staff attorney Jeffrey Stein said in a statement. “The Trump administration has murdered over 210 civilians with no sound legal or moral basis. At a minimum, the administration must disclose to the American people why it thinks this killing spree is lawful.”
The DOJ, which is seeking a summary judgment, claimed that the memo contains classified and highly sensitive information that, if disclosed, would compromise intelligence operations and sources. DOJ attorneys argued that executive privilege shields the memo from disclosure.
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Stein asserted that the boat strikes are being carried out "on the basis of secret law" that "has no place in a democratic society" and dismissed the government's claim as “contrary to the foundational presidential communications privileges" in Freedom of Information Act cases.
CCR legal director Baher Azmy accused the Trump administration of "displacing the fundamental mandates of international law with the phony wartime rhetoric of a basic autocrat."
“If the OLC opinion seeks to dress up the obvious illegality of these serial homicides in legalese in order to provide cover, the public needs to see this analysis and ultimately hold accountable all those who facilitate murder in the United States’ name," he added.
CCR said that the OLC memo "supposedly validates the ongoing strikes as lawful acts in an alleged 'armed conflict' with unspecified 'drug cartels.'"
"Reportedly, the memo also purports to immunize personnel who authorized or took part in these unlawful strikes from future criminal prosecution for what would otherwise simply be homicides," the group added.
As CCR said Wednesday:
Contrary to the government’s public assertions, the US is not, and could not be, in an armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels. Under international law, an armed conflict between a state and a nonstate actor exists only if the nonstate actor is an “organized armed group” that is structured and disciplined like regular armed forces and is engaged in “protracted armed violence” against the state. There is no plausible argument that any drug cartel satisfies this test vis-à-vis the United States.
Even if the OLC does release the memo, it doesn't mean that its arguments are actually legal under international law. OLC lawyers have notoriously written opinions that affirm the purported legality of their administration's policies, from John Yoo positing during former President George W. Bush's War on Terror that detainee abuse only crossed the threshold of torture when the pain inflicted upon the victim was equal to “organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," to the Obama-era OLC determining that the president could order the extrajudicial assassination of US citizens under certain circumstances.
Since last September, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has publicly disclosed 66 strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that it has claimed—without providing evidence—were involved in "narco-trafficking operations." The bombings have killed 215 people and left around a dozen survivors, according to a strike tracker published by The Intercept. In the first of the attacks, a special operations commander ordered a second strike that killed two survivors, reportedly on orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "kill everybody."
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On the heels of a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts siding with Democratic state attorneys general who challenged President Donald Trump's executive order requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, another judge in the same district on Thursday blocked key portions of a second Trump order attacking US elections.
In the latest decision, District Judge Indira Talwani struck down Section 2, which orders the US Department of Homeland Security to create "confirmed citizen lists" of eligible voters, as well as Section 3, which directs the US Postal Service to create rules to limit the mailing of ballots to voters not included on its own lists.
"The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections. Broadly, the Constitution vests the president with 'executive power' and commands him to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'" wrote Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. "Sections 2 and 3... are legally void as they are ultra vires and unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers."
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Several state attorneys general were involved in both of this week's cases, including New York Democrat Letitia James, who called Thursday's decision a "major victory" as well as a "critical step in defending the foundation of our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote."
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday also cheered the back-to-back wins against the Republican president.
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The attorneys and plaintiffs in that case said in a joint statement that as Thursday's decision "makes clear, President Trump's executive order from March 2026 attempting to seize control of elections is unconstitutional and dangerous."
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"This is a bitter Pentagon potion that no one should swallow."
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In a letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought said that most of the requested funding "will address urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury (OEF), in addition to other critical needs such as responding to the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa and supporting hardworking American farmers."
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Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, similarly noted that "the tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump administration could be used to protect Americans’ healthcare, feed hungry children, and help working families afford everyday life."
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