Liberty Matters News Service
April 2, 2002
Klamath
Water Flows
Water began flowing last Friday at
the Klamath Basin A Canal while Secretaries Gale Norton and Ann Veneman
watched. “We’ve come to
understand and know the needs of agriculture in this valley,” said
Norton, but she said “we have to find ways to balance the needs of the
ecosystem and of people.” Water was restored after a draft report by the National
Academy of Sciences concluded that the shutoff was unwarranted.
Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued its final
biological opinion concluding that allowing the water to flow wasn’t
likely to jeopardize suckers or bald eagles. However, they did require a fish screen be installed in front
of the headgates to keep suckers from being drawn into the canal system.
Because of this fiasco, Congress is now looking at including aid
in the farm bill for Klamath farmers.
The
Water is Flowing, But Questions Remain
Bush Cuts
Peru a ‘Conservation for Debt’ Deal
President
Bush marched through Latin America, last week, waving money and
promises, saying the United States has an “obligation to help poor
nations.” During his stop in Peru, the President revealed an agreement
whereby the United States would cancel a portion of its debt in exchange
for the Peruvian government’s promise to conserve and maintain
wildlife refuges. “President
Toledo and I have agreed to renew discussions on a bilateral investment
(spending) treaty, and to complete a debt-for-nature agreement, to help
Peru reduce debt payments while it protects its biodiversity,” Bush
said. Non-government
agencies including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy,
and the World Wildlife Fund will contribute $1.1 million and the United
States will provide $5.5 million to cancel a portion of Peru’s debt to
the United States. The
debt-for-nature program is authorized under the “Tropical Forest
Conservation Act,” and will enable Peru to establish parks, protected
areas and reserves - just what a small country that is struggling with
poverty needs.
Debt
for Nature (pdf - 2pgs.)
“Creation
Care,” a New Environmental Effort
The Sierra Club has formed an alliance with individuals from the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Evangelical Christian religions, called the National Council of Churches, to start a grassroots campaign in 21 states. Evangelical churches are calling it “creation care,” but other religious leaders remain suspicious of environmentalists as “nature worshippers.” The Sierra Club claims that “ecotheology” is the fastest growing Christian ministry in the country, where followers worship God’s creation as opposed to the Creator. One leader of the Orthodox Christian Church said in 1997: “To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin.” Find out by asking your kids and your Sunday school teachers what they are teaching in class.
Administration
Tackles Critical Habitat
The
Bush Administration is asking the Western federal courts to rescind the
designation of millions of acres of critical habitat for endangered
species. The request comes on the heels of a series of discoveries of
falsified data in the national lynx survey, along with findings of a
scientific review board that faulty information about endangered fish
brought about the calamity in the Klamath Basin, and Forest Service
officials were exposed as having used faulty data of spotted owl habitat
to deny timber sales in California forests.
A Federal Claims Court judge ordered the government to pay
Wetsel-Oviatt Lumber Company $9.5 million for four canceled sales.
Judge Lawrence S. Margolis said the Forest Service action was
“arbitrary, capricious and without rational basis.”
In another case, the Washington Times reported the
National Marine Fisheries Service “agreed to rescind critical habitat
designations for 19 West Coast salmon and steelhead populations” after
the National Association of Home Builders produced a memo showing there
was no habitat analysis performed.
The memo read in part: “When
we make critical habitat designations, we just designate everything as
critical, without an analysis of how much habitat” is needed, said a
high-level government official. The
Bush administration says critical habitat for whip snakes, salmon,
Mexican spotted owl and others must be rescinded because there were no
economic analyses performed.
Owl
Data Faulty
Two
ESA Reform Bills
Rep.
Greg Walden, R- Ore., and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-CA, whose constituents
have been hammered from the effects of Endangered Species Act
enforcement, have thrown a couple of ESA reform bills into the hopper.
H.R. 2829 requires sound scientific proof that species are
endangered before the government can initiate action on their behalf. “The data must be empirical, field-tested or peer
reviewed,” said Mr. Walden. H.R.
3705, by Pombo requires that “anyone submitting a petition to list a
species provide ‘clear and convincing evidence’ on the known and
historic ranges of the species; the most recent population estimates and
trends; threats to the species; and proof that the population decline is
more than a normal fluctuation.”
Quibblers complain those stringent requirements would deny many
listing petitions since the required data does not exist.
Environmentalists are not trembling in fear that the ESA will
actually be reformed. They
say the latest attempts are merely election-year posturing, emanating
from House Resource Republicans, who are misstating the lynx and Klamath
Basin “controversies.”
HR
2829 (pdf - 11pgs)
HR
3705 (pdf - 15pgs)