When Will It End?

When I heard this story on NPR the other day, it had me so angry and upset that I was shouting at the radio and on the verge of tears. No joke, you can ask Special K who was startled by the strength of my reaction.

This administration never ceases to amaze and disgust me with their relentless determination to undermine environmental protection efforts. Their arrogance and sense of entitlement absolutely enrages me, because the complete selfishness they display will affect so much more than just their little insulated world of wealth and privilege. I'm appalled at this blatant attempt to gut one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation since the National Environmental Policy Act was created in 1970, all in the name of, once again, sucking up to the wrong people. I am counting the days until this buffoon and his cronies are out of office, and I pray that we'll be able to some day repair some of the damage that they've done to this country on every front, not just environmental. I don't envy the next president, they've got one hell of a mess to clean up. And if these bastards succeed in pushing these changes through, I hope that they will eventually feel the weight of the damage they're causing.

Terms of Endangerment
Bush admin tries sneaky attack on endangered-species protections

The Bush administration is trying to push through changes to the Endangered Species Act that would -- surprise! -- be detrimental to endangered species. Under proposed regulatory changes, tens of thousands of projects funded, built, or authorized by federal agencies each year would be exempt from currently mandated independent reviews. Instead, the administration has determined that federal agencies now have the know-how to decide whether highways, dams, mines, and the like would harm endangered species -- and the regulations would not allow agencies to include greenhouse-gas emissions in those calculations. "We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," says the proposal. Ha ha ha! Oh, that's not a joke? The proposed changes require only a 30-day public comment period -- not congressional approval -- before being finalized. The Interior Department is not accepting email comments, but you can sound off on the proposal here until Sept. 15. Green groups and Dems are none too happy about it all, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has asked that the feds "discontinue further action."