NYT: Judges Rebuff Government on Endangered Species (S.F. and Vt.)

[DeepModem Mom]

Judges Rebuff Government on Endangered Species
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: August 20, 2005


WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 - Federal judges on opposite sides of the country ruled Friday that the Fish and Wildlife Service had acted arbitrarily and violated the Endangered Species Act when it reversed its own decisions and cut back on protections for two disparate species.

The judges - one in San Francisco and one in Brattleboro, Vt. - overturned separate regulations involving California tiger salamanders and gray wolves in New England.

In both cases, the Bush administration had combined sparser, distinct populations of a species with larger, robust populations, and then said protections could be reduced.

In his ruling striking down the agency's 2003 regulation on gray wolves, Judge J. Garvan Murtha wrote that the agency, after making the scientific determination that a species was endangered, could not change its mind "because it lumps together a core population with a low to nonexistent population."...

***

In the case of the California salamanders, brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Judge William Alsup ruled that the wildlife service had "no scientific evidence" for reversing itself in a 2004 regulation that reduced protections for separate populations of the tiger salamander in Santa Barbara and Sonoma Counties. Both populations had been listed as endangered....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/20/politics/20species.html

[baby_bear]

1. I just read this in my print edition and was going to post it

It's buried on page A28.

I like this:

<snip>
Judge Alsup's decision invalidated the 2004 rule, saying that it "was bereft of any analysis."

Agency scientists, he found, "were overruled and directed to eliminate" their earlier finding that these two populations of salamander were distinct subgroups and in danger of extermination.

Peter Galvin, conservation director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the ruling "shines a very bright spotlight on the Bush administration's subversion of science."

</snip>

'nuff said. I hope people realize that, for the most part, career federal scientists are agonizing over Bush administration policies at their departments/agencies.

b_b

[mike_c]

2. I see that every day up here in norcal where the timber wars...

...have been simmering for years.

[Eloriel]

3. Nominated. Nice to see a small win for our side now and then. n/t

[TaleWgnDg]

4. Federal judges with backbones! Yesssssssssss . . .

.
Federal judges with backbones! That stick to legal rationalities. Yesssssssssss . . . this is what a lifetime appointment is all about. Indeed.



a la George Walker Bush's Administration and his hired "scientific" guns
.

[Judi Lynn]

5. One only hopes we can hold it together until he leaves office.IF he will.

The world may not hold up to too much more Republican rape and pillaging.

From the article:

Peter Galvin, conservation director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the ruling "shines a very bright spotlight on the Bush administration's subversion of science."

Sad, sad. Thank god for this conscientious judge.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Subversion of both nature, and science, at the same time. nt