AP IMPACT: Bush to relax protected species rules

By DINA CAPPIELLO

WASHINGTON - Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press.

The draft rules also would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.

If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1988. They would accomplish through regulations what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.

The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft obtained by the AP.

"We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," the proposal said.

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, H. Dale Hall, in an interview with the AP Monday, said the changes will help focus expertise on projects that have serious repercussions for species.

"We are trying to be more efficient, which means not do consultations that result in a difference for the species," Hall said.

A National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman declined Monday to discuss the draft proposal since it had yet to be published.

The new rules are expected to be proposed formally in coming weeks. They would be subject to a 60-day public comment period before being finalized by the Interior Department, giving the administration enough time to impose them before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.

The proposal was drafted largely by attorneys in the general counsel's offices of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Interior Department, according to an official with the National Marine Fisheries Service, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan hadn't yet been circulated publicly. The two agencies' experts were not consulted until last week, the official said.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

The reviews have helped safeguard protected species such as bald eagles, Florida panthers and whooping cranes. A federal government handbook from 1998 described the consultations as "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."

In recent years, however, some federal agencies and private developers have complained that the process results in delays and increased construction costs.

"We have always had concerns with respect to the need for streamlining and making it a more efficient process," said Joe Nelson, a lawyer for the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, a trade group for home builders and the paper and farming industry.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

"This proposed regulation is another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door," she said. "If this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the gray whale."

The Bush administration and Congress have attempted with mixed success to change the law.

In 2003, the administration imposed similar rules that would have allowed agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without asking the opinion of government scientists about whether threatened or endangered species and habitats might be affected. The pesticide rule was later overturned in court. The Interior Department, along with the Forest Service, is currently being sued over the rule governing wildfire prevention.

In 2005, the House passed a bill that would have made similar changes to the Endangered Species Act, but the bill died in the Senate.

The sponsor of that bill, then-House Resources chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., told the AP Monday that allowing agencies to judge for themselves the effects of a project will not harm species or habitat.

"There is no way they can rubber stamp everything because they will end up in court for every decision," he said.

But internal reviews by the National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that about half the unilateral evaluations by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management that determined wildfire prevention projects were unlikely to harm protected species were not legally or scientifically valid.

Those had been permitted under the 2003 rule changes.

"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act."

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How to turn gas guzzlers into green machines

How much gasoline could US citizens save by driving around in light-weight hybrid vehicles? Up to half what they currently use, say scientists at MIT.

The US consumes about 140 billion gallons of gasoline each year. A team of researchers led by John Heywood has completed a five-year assessment of what can be done to slash that and save fuel for the nation.

They looked at how gas and diesel engines, as well as hybrid electric cars and plug-in cars, are likely to evolve between now and 2035. They also assessed what can reasonably be expected from new fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels.

"Improvements" in cars in recent years have largely focused on increasing performance, driven by the demand for ever-larger and more powerful cars. As a result, no significant fuel consumption gains have been realised over the past 25 years, says the team.

They call for car manufacturers to focus efforts on improving fuel savings over performance.

Lighten the load

A seemingly simple way of reducing the amount of fuel used by cars without a big change in consumer preferences would be to produce lighter cars. Heywood's team estimate that the average US car 25 years from now could feasibly weigh between 20% and 35% less without compromising on security and convenience. This alone would cut fuel consumption by between 12% and 20%.

Looking to what types of cars could push petroleum cars off the roads in 15 to 30 years, the team see the greatest potential in hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars – with batteries that can be topped up from the grid.

Whereas current spark-ignition cars use on average 8.9 litres of gasoline to travel 100 kilometres, more efficient equivalents could consume just 5.5 litres by 2035, while hybrids and plug-in hybrids would consume 3.1 and 2.2 litres respectively.

The team calculate what this would mean in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. On average, current "conventional" cars in the US emit 277 grams of CO₂ per km travelled. In 2035, their equivalents could chuck out just 178g per km. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids, meanwhile, are projected to emit just 109g.

The price tag

There will be a price to pay though: the hybrids will cost between $2500 and $5900 more than their contemporary petrol-only equivalents. Heywood says the government may have to step in to help with the transition.

Despite the hurdles, he and his team estimate that by improving fuel efficiency over the next 15 years and bringing in "radically different" cars including hybrids and possibly fuel cell cars in the next 30, it should be possible to slash the amount of fuel guzzled by the gas-guzzling nation by 30% to 50% by 2035.

The team points out that the biggest change can come from the drivers themselves. "We have got to get out of the habit of thinking that we only need to focus on improving the technology, that we can invent our way out of this situation," says Heywood.

"Transitioning from our current situation onto a path with declining fuel consumption and emissions, even in the developed world, will take several decades – much longer than we had hoped or realised," he says. "We've got to start now."

Reference: On the road in 2035, 2008

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Kangaroo Farming Could Reduce Global Warming

Written by Ariel Schwartz

What if you could drastically reduce greenhouse gases just by changing your eating habits?

According to a new study by the University of New South Wales, farming kangaroos instead of sheep or cattle could lower national greenhouse gases in Australia by 3 percent a year.

Methane from burps and farts of cows and sheep is an often overlooked contributor to global warming, but it accounts for 67% of Australia’s agricultural sector methane emissions. It also contributes 11% of Australia’s total emissions. In contrast, kangaroos barely produce any methane.

Of course, changing an entire nation’s eating habits isn’t easy. Australia sells relatively little kangaroo meat for consumption compared to other types of meat, and then there’s the issue of kangaroos being a national icon. But Australia produces 1.5 of the world’s carbon emissions, so drastic steps certainly shouldn’t be out of the question. If the farming project actually takes off, the authors of the University of South Wales study estimate that rangelands could support 240 million kangaroos—and only 175 million kangaroos are needed to produce the same amount of meat currently harvested from rangelands.

Fortunately for those of us living outside of Australia, other countries are embarking on similar projects to reduce methane by farming low-emissions animals. Examples include springbok in South Africa, red deer in the UK, and bison in the United States. With CO2 emissions from other industries showing no signs of slowing down, eating a red deer burger doesn’t sound so bad.

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