...I have in the past railed against a sometimes excessive use of litigation by environmentalists.  And I understand the argument that, if you can't demonstrate the success of Recovery Plans for endangered species to restore a healthy population, then what is the use of a Recovery Plan?  And what is the best evidence of success?  To remove a species from the list of threatened or endangered species.

Which is what happened this year for the gray wolves in the contiguous 48 states (they were never listed as threatened or endangered in Alaska).  Having watched the process unfold since the Recovery Plan was first formulated.......having written my own recovery plan of sorts for the wolf for a senior project in college........I did count the move as a measure of success.  I did. 

I get it.  And in the case of the wolf, some of the Fish and Wildlife Service folks who have been working on wolf reintroduction for many, many years claim there is good reason to delist them. But delisting them is one thing.  Actively opening up hunting season amongst a group of people who hate this animal is quite another. You can just see the licked lips and cocked guns of the men waiting to (legally) bag themselves a wolf in the lower 48 states with management turned over to Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.  And it isn't a pretty picture.  There are better ways to manage the population.

And logic can be known to fly out the window for me when I am dealing with a topic that can either warm my heart or boil my blood.  I can admit that.  And this topic can, and has, done both for over 20 years for me.

So, ha.  I'll count this as a victory for the wolf.  From the news article: 

A federal judge has restored endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, derailing plans by three states to hold public wolf hunts this fall.

A victory for my animal.  Not the entire environmental movement.  Don't attribute motivation to me that I don't have.  This is an emotional issue for me and it is limited to this one animal.  Whatever the battles in court, the wolf will eventually be delisted permanently.  Is it too much to ask these states to not try and hunt them into extinction the moment that happens?  Go back and work on it Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.  Haven't we learned any lessons from our past actions here in the United States?

Wait.........what was I talking about?

I jumped over to Onodowahgah's blog tonight, and was distressed to read about the federal government's on-going attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act. It used to be a legislative-led fight when the champion anti-ESA man, Congressman Richard Pombo was in office. But he's gone now.

And thank goodness for that. No joke. Of all the election news I listened to last November, the only thing that made me do a spontaneous happy dance in my living room was hearing that Pombo's re-election efforts had failed. His links to Abramoff may have been his most publicized problems but, for me, having him as the Chair of the House Resources Committee was the most distasteful thing in the world. A happy dance, I tell you. You can ask my mom, she was visiting at the time. I don't think she quite understood the reason for the happy dance. That man was toxic.

So, he is out. And now it seems the push to weaken the Act is coming from the federal agency itself. The federal agency and the Department of the Interior. The Department with a Secretary of the Interior appointed by President Bush. And, as Onodowahgah states, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles became the highest ranking Bush administration official to be convicted of a crime in the Abramoff corruption scandal.

Onodowahgah has a link to a Seattle Times piece. And that article links to another one at Salon.

This is not the time to be weakening our nation's environmental legislation. And it seems like a majority of the public agrees with that.

And it's not like the Fish and Wildlife Service has been able to list a ton of new species every year anyway. They would need huge increases in their federal budget allocation to employ enough staff to do the work it takes to list species and draft recovery plans in the first place. And they are not going to get that! How many federal departments got huge increases in their budget this year? Besides the Department of Defense? (I actually have those numbers printed out back home and was working on that blog topic. So, I'll have specific numbers for you when I get back home) Anyway, the point is, if there is not enough staff to do the work, it doesn't matter what their legislative mandate is. I've heard Army Corps of Engineers staff tell a room full of public officials and private consultants not to expect timely processing of their wetland delineation verifications and permits. Not because they didn't want to do their job. Not because they didn't want to protect wetlands. But simply because they did not have the staff to do the work. The ESA doesn't need to be gutted, the way this administration is (not) handing out money to agencies to do their job.

Regardless, if there are officials and staff people who honestly believe the new draft regulations are not scientifically sound, or are politically motivated, let's hope they will speak up publicly.

And, in the spirit of being even-minded, here is my chide to environmentalists - STOP SUING EVERYTHING! Not only is the Fish and Wildlife Service hindered by lack of funds from the federal budget, their money is draining away by fighting lawsuit after lawsuit. Now, I don't know each and every lawsuit that is being filed. Some may be of the utmost necessity. But I've worked in a field where the environmental work I have labored on has been legally challenged (or threatened with legal challenge). Sometimes, they are challenged in the name of the environment. And that is a joke. They have been challenged for labor reasons, for monetary reasons, and for racist reasons. I can tell when someone who speaks against something is really sincere about the actual physical environmental consequences. And I can tell when they are not. It's not rocket science, it's human nature. I can't believe that every single lawsuit brought against the Fish and Wildlife Service is truly pure of earthly heart. So, think about that long and hard, Sierra Club, when you suit up to sue. I'm a card-carrying member, but I don't like supporting non-vital litigation.

There are ways to respect property-owners rights without gutting this Act. There are ways to leave some decisions up to the States without gutting this Act. There are less ways to protect vanishing species that are vital to the ecological well-being of this country if you gut this Act.

Most folks who know me know that I'm not a big fan of sports utility vehicles.  Not just because I used to drive a small car, and any SUV could pulverize me with a single blow.  And not just because I feel that some hulking SUVs are quite unnecessarily bigger than they need to be, especially considering the number of people who use them to commute alone to work every day.  Not just because, in California, so many four-wheel drive off-road-capable vehicles are only used a couple of times a year to drive on mountain roads that any car with chains can also drive on.

No, my biggest beef with the makers and regulators of these autos is the leniency they have received when it comes to fuel efficiency standards.  In a nutshell, SUVs have been labeled in the light truck category, which allows them to comply with lower fuel efficiency standards.  And, while SUV manufacturers will whine to federal regulators for years and years and years that they need more time to meet more stringent standards and they need more time to improve fuel-efficiency, when market conditions require them to increase fuel efficiency (hello Ford), suddenly they can pop out new SUV models, including hybrids.  My argument is that, they could have done this years ago, but were too lazy to change any formula that makes a profit.

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards came about when Congress enacted the Energy Policy Conservation Act in 1975.   There is a very long September 2002 policy report called "Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy: The CAFE Standards."  You can read that HERE, if you have the interest.  So, when people complain that SUVs are gas-guzzlers, it's not just because they are larger vehicles, it is because many of them have been held to lower standards than passenger cars. 

In an effort to balance the discussion, I can point you to some arguments against the CAFE fuel-efficiency standards.  That is a 2001 piece.  Although some of these same concerns were brought up in the September 2002 report, I can't say I agree with all the arguments.  The 2001 piece argues that increasing fuel efficiency means decreasing the weight of vehicles, which makes them more unsafe in car crashes.  While it has been shown that heavier cars do better in certain types of crashes, I don't know that you can directly correlate that to increased death and injury on American freeways.  Could it be that the huge increase in giant SUVs on the road (that often drive like they are the only ones ON the road, by the way) would be a reason why so many crashes are so much more damaging to passengers?  Wouldn't it be better then to decrease the weight of the behemoth SUVs and give a passenger car a fighting chance?   

The 2001 piece argues that increased fuel efficiency just leads to people driving more miles.  I would argue that the low price of gas in America leads to more driving. Yes, low. Even at our highest, American gas prices don't compare to the price of gas overseas.  Americans are spoiled and, as usual, they don't even realize they are spoiled because many Americans have no clue what goes on in other parts of the world.   

I was filling up my car a year or so ago when the "high" price of summer gas was on the news.  The guy at the pump next to me was filling his car, and he looks at me and smiles and just shrugs.  He asked me something like "What are you going to do?" [about the high price of gas]  He looked at me like I would be sympathetic.  I told him "Well, you could drive your car less", and proceeded to tell him about how high the gas prices have always been in Europe.  How they use public transportation and don"t drive everywhere.  He looked a little perplexed that I wasn"t upset about the price of gas. 

Many families in Europe have only one car.  Not a truck and an SUV.  Just one car.  And usually a small car.  I have two aunts who live in Europe who never drive.  They don"t need to.  Public transportation is great, and they are not dependent on a car to get around.  Europeans learned to deal with the high price of gas because they had to, and because they wanted to.  I wouldn't mind if gas prices doubled from what they are now because I think that is the *only* way to get Americans to drive less.  Increasing fuel efficiency is not the cause of increased driving.  People live farther away from their work with the housing boom.  And, let's face it, a lot of us just like to drive.  Probably a control issue. 

So, while I see the need for a bigger vehicle once in a while, and I love my friends and family who own big cars, I don't feel sorry for any single-occupant driver who complains about the high price of gas.  And I'm excited about Hybrid SUVs, but I think it would be better if Americans could learn to live with less excess.  I rode in the back seat of a passenger car with my sister many many times during road trips and being in close quarters didn't cause us to kill each other (honestly - I've heard an owner of a huge SUV use this excuse as to why it was so necessary - so that her two children wouldn't have to touch each other in the back!).  I think today's kids can learn to sit within touching distance and not implode.  Maybe then they can also learn to be better stewards of their planet.