Editorial: Endangering a law

Monday, April 2, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are considering rule changes that would, among other things, limit the ability of federal wildlife agents to intervene on behalf of endangered species or their habitats.

According to The New York Times, proposed changes to how the Fish and Wildlife Service administers the Endangered Species Act have been under consideration and revision since June. In addition to limiting federal wildlife agents' powers, the proposal would allow states to enforce some of the Endangered Species Act's protections.

The law applies not only to the endangered plants and animals , but also extends to the habitats that enable these species to survive and reproduce. Such protections have long been criticized by logging, mining and development industries as preventing progress, mostly in the West , where the Bush administration is trying to increase oil and gas drilling.

The provisions being discussed in the Fish and Wildlife Service are similar to the failed Endangered Species Act amendments that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed when he was a U.S. senator from Idaho. And they are similar to those that were proposed, and defeated, in the Republican-led Congress last year.

With Democrats now in charge of Congress, amendments that dilute the law and that open sensitive habitats to oil exploration and other industrial uses are even less likely to come to fruition. So the Bush administration apparently is trying an end around, instead hoping to enact rule changes to whittle away the Fish and Wildlife Service's protection responsibilities and hand them over to the states.

In addition, the Times reports, the proposed changes suggest that unless a plant or animal's survival is destined to be at risk within 20 years or 10 generations, then it is not eligible for inclusion under the law. Long-living but endangered creatures such as Nevada's desert tortoise - which can live to be 50 or even 75 years old - could be left unprotected.

This is not how the Endangered Species Act is supposed to work. The federal law calls for federal protections of the habitats of plants and animals that are in danger of passing from existence al together. The recent removal of the Yellowstone region's grizzlies and the proposed removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list show that this law works as intended. Leave it alone.