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House lawmakers ask Interior to halt ESA rewrite |
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A group of House lawmakers asked the Bush administration today to stop its rewrite of Endangered Species Act regulations.
Seventy-six members, most of them Democrats, told Interior Secretary
Dirk Kempthorne in a letter to "reconsider any attempts" to change the
law until he seeks the advice of congressional committees with ESA
jurisdiction.
A similar letter from Senate Democrats last month asked for
details on the "troubling" ESA rewrite effort. And members of the House
Natural Resources panel blasted Interior officials at a hearing last
week for proposed rule changes that they said could undermine key
protections for species.
The administration can move forward with its regulations
without congressional approval, but an angry Congress could put future
work on the regulations on hold by blocking funding.
Interior has been under fire since draft regulatory changes
became public in March. That draft would scale back federal power to
list species or prevent disruptive activities in their habitat.
Fish and Wildlife Service Chief Dale Hall said they have
thrown out those proposals and are drafting new regulations but have
kept the details on what they could include close to the vest.
The letter today acknowledges that the new regulations may
differ from the draft proposal but says they still have concerns that
Interior may attempt "significant changes" without further
congressional involvement.
"To be clear, we object to any attempt to rewrite the
Endangered Species Act that does not involve the United States
Congress," the letter states. "Broad changes to a law that is such a
cornerstone of conservation in America deserve and require the full
deliberation of Congress, not its exclusion from the process."
Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), Jim Moran (D-Va.) and
Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) were the lead authors of the letter, which
is signed by half the Democrats on the Interior Appropriations panel.
Hinchey also sent a letter to Interior Appropriations
Committee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) asking him to include language
in the spending bill that would limit the administration's ability to
overhaul ESA (Greenwire, May 1).
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