|
This news story originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
October 31, 2006
Just follow the law
SOME Western U.S. judges appear to be tired of federal agencies that fall
down on the job of protecting the nation’s fish, wildlife, streams and forests.
In some cases, the Bush administration’s push for more commercial development
on Western federal land threatens to undo the environmental legacy of President
Richard Nixon, USA Today reported. Federal judges have found that the federal
government ignores federal law. Some cases, just since August, include:
U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte in California reinstated a ban on most
commercial and development activities in Western roadless areas. They will
remain open to hunting, hiking and horseback riding, but not to drilling and
logging.
U.S. District Judge James Singleton found that that the Interior Department
failed to consider the impact on wildlife, particularly caribou, in a plan to
drill for oil and gas in the Teshekpuk Lake area in northern Alaska.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that the Bureau of Land Management
did not consider an earlier analysis of an area of Utah before planning to sell
oil and gas leases. The previous government report, done during the Clinton
administration, said the area is pristine and could qualify as a federally
protected wilderness area if Congress chose to designate it.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill found that the Bureau of Land Management
violated the National Environmental Policy Act, signed by President Nixon in
1970, by limiting public comment and by ignoring evidence related to rules for
grazing on federal land. The bureau wanted to allow ranchers more time to
correct environmental damage and to give them title to improvements, such as
fences. The evidence showed that the rules could harm rangeland.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the Forest Service’s plan for
commercial logging in California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument “trampled the
applicable environmental laws.”
Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Bruce R. Harris found that the Bureau of
Land Management ignored air-quality and wildlife data, particularly about an
endangered lynx, before selling energy leases on national forest land in western
Wyoming.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy found that the Fish and Wildlife Service
had ignored “substantial scientific information that would lead a reasonable
person to conclude” that wolverines may be endangered or threatened. He ordered
the agency to look into the matter for a year.
The Bush administration’s record of distortions is well-documented when it
comes to drumming up fervor for the invasion of Iraq, for smearing the names of
opponents or for tricking fundamentalists into supporting its causes. The
examples above show that the pattern of behavior — of ignoring inconvenient
facts — occurs in land management also.
The Washington Post noted that in their rulings, judges are using blunt
language expressing annoyance with executive branch offices that ignore the
nation’s laws.
Federal agencies “have repeatedly and collectively failed to demonstrate a
willingness to do what is necessary” under the Endangered Species Act, wrote
U.S. District Judge James A. Redden in Portland in still another case. That one
involves a stalled federal effort to prevent salmon from becoming extinct in the
Columbia and Snake rivers. The judge specifically criticized the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation, the
Bonneville Power Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Corps is involved in two more federal cases in West Virginia — both
recent challenges to mountaintop removal coal mining. In one, U.S. District
Judge Joseph R. Goodwin is considering whether to block the Corps from
authorizing new valley fills through a streamlined permitting process under the
Clean Water Act.
In the other, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition argues that the Corps
must do lengthy environmental-impact statements on each of 12 streams that would
be buried if Massey Energy is given four permits for different mountaintop
removal projects. Such studies are required by federal law “for every major
federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.”
The Corps has replied that it believes the proposed valley fills “won’t cause
significant adverse effects on human health and the environment.”
The executive branch, headed by the president, is required by the
Constitution to carry out the nation’s laws. This administration simply ignores
parts of laws it doesn’t like and waits for someone to challenge them.
Fortunately, America’s 200-year-old system of checks and balances is alive and
well, at least among Western judges who insist that the executive branch follow
the people’s laws.
|
