November 15, 2004

1) Critical habitat for steelhead and salmon threatened again

The right-wing Pacific Legal Foundation is trying to strike down critical habitat protections for 48 listed species of California plants and animals, including steelhead trout, chinook salmon, and coho salmon. The PLF announced this week its intent to file a sweeping lawsuit against the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, challenging the critical habitat designations.

For more information on this issue as it develops, sign up to receive Biodiversity Activist alerts from the Center for Biological Diversity at http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/

2) Help protect the Endangered Species Act

California developers are pressuring members of Congress to stealthily and immediately amend the Endangered Species Act to allow critical habitat areas to be destroyed and to require continuation of development plans that are proven to threaten endangered species. This gutting of the ESA would be rushed through with little or no debate by attaching it as a rider to an unrelated appropriations bill next week. The rider is being considered as we speak by Senator Feinstein (D-CA) and others.

Please call Senator Feinstein today or send the sample letter below to oppose this rider! The Congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Senate contact information is also at www.senate.gov

Major changes to our Endangered Species protection laws should receive full

consideration by Members of Congress--not be hidden within spending bills.

The proposed rider would:

A) Exempt timber companies, developers, oil companies, and other businesses from fixing the mitigation plans (aka Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs)) they must follow to receive federal permits to operate in threatened and endangered species' habitats. Specifically, the rider would make the controversial "No Surprises" rule a permanent part of the ESA. The majority of threatened and endangered species' habitats occur on non-federal lands, and are potentially subject to HCPs. Studies have found that most HCPs are seriously flawed; many allow substantial population losses and the destruction of millions of acres of imperiled species' habitats. Many timber company HCPs, for example, log most of the species' habitats in the area. "No Surprises" tells companies that their HCPs are exempt from being improved for decades, no matter how flawed the plans prove to be. Developers are pushing the rider because a court decision questioned "No

Surprises." Any landowner assurances in the ESA should take a more balanced approach than "No Surprises." For more on HCPs see http://www.americanlands.org/issues.php?subsubNo=108683426

B) Erase federal agencies' requirement to conduct ESA "consultation" when approving HCPs. A recent court decision confirmed that federal agencies must ensure that federal "projects" avoid harming threatened and endangered

species' chances of recovery, and approving an HCP may count as a "project." Developers are promoting the rider because the court decision would help protect species' habitats from developers, timber companies, and others, by ensuring that their HCPs actually help threatened and endangered species and meet the ESA's overarching goal of recovering species' populations.

C) Erase federal agencies' requirement to conduct ESA "consultation" and protect species' recovery options when approving ANY federal project, including logging on National Forests and other federal PUBLIC lands.

For more information, see the attached factsheet.

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Oppose Anti-ESA rider on Omnibus Approps. Bill

Dear _______,

California developers are pressuring members of Congress to place a rider on the upcoming Omnibus Appropriations Bill to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act. The amendments would be the most significant changes to the ESA since 1982. Massive public policy changes should not be done through stealth riders. They should be subject to rigorous public review and debate. Please do not allow the rider to be attached or to be voted through on the Omnibus coattails.

RIDER 1. For almost 20 years, federal agencies have used a controversial Reagan-era regulation that undermines the recovery of endangered species by allowing the destruction and degradation of their critical habitats. In the past four years, three different federal appeals courts have ruled that the regulation is illegal. The most recent decision states: "This can not be right. If the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] follows its own regulation, then it is obligated to be indifferent to, if not to ignore, the recovery goal of critical habitat." The victory should issue in a new conservation era that focuses on recovery of endangered species, not merely keeping them alive in a continuous endangered state. Developers want to override the Endangered Species Act and the courts to undermine recovery, allowing critical habitats to be destroyed and wildlife populations to continue their slow spiral toward extinction.

RIDER 2. The rider also seeks to shield logging, development, mining and other large-scale plans from scientific review and reform -even when the plans are proven by scientists to be pushing imperiled plants and animals to extinction. The rider would thus amend the ESA to include the controversial "no surprises" policy created in the mid-1990s. Like the anti-critical habitat regulation, this plan was also struck down by the courts. Developers want the outdated policy made a permanent part of the ESA even though it has been thoroughly opposed by scientists and is currently being rewritten to include greater public review and to remove its most glaring flaws. The developers don't want to wait for public review; they don't want the flaws removed; they want the plan enshrined in its worst, most damaging form.

Please oppose these riders to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Riders take the public out of public policy. They shield controversial, damaging proposals from debate and examination. In this case, they would weaken the fundamental underpinnings of the Endangered Species Act: recovery, habitat protection, and good science. We need more recovery of endangered species not less. We need more protection of essential habitat areas, not less. And we need to change management plans in response to new scientific research, not blindly lock plans into place.

Sincerely, __________