Environmental Victories this Holiday Season
Great news for environmental protections this holiday season, here's a brief of some of the latest victories:
Seattle Times | Orcas get 2nd shot at stricter federal protection
Rapid declines in Puget Sound's signature marine mammal, the killer whales that summer off the San Juan Islands, may, after all, land orcas on the list of creatures protected under the Endangered Species Act.
A federal judge yesterday ruled that the agency charged with protecting the region's whales used faulty science to decide that the Sound's orcas weren't a "distinct" population that needed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to ensure their survival. >>>Continue reading
NY Times | U.S. Won't Narrow Wetlands Protection
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - Making an abrupt change in its approach to the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that it would jettison plans to remove federal protection from millions of acres of wetlands.
The agency's administrator, Michael O. Leavitt, made the announcement late in the afternoon in a hastily called news conference. The change effectively repudiated an internal draft regulation that proposed withdrawing federal protections from many isolated wetlands and intermittent streams, including many small waterways in the arid West. >>>Continue reading
Billings Gazette | Judge reinstates snowmobile ban in Yellowstone Park
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the administration should not have set aside a previous ban on snowmobiles inside [Yellowstone] park. He said the National Park Service should return to the Clinton administration plan to phase out the machines...
He pointed out that the government determined, after a decade's worth of studies, that snowmobiles had such an adverse impact on wildlife and park resources that snowmobile use should be halted and only snowcoaches should be used for visitors. >>>Continue reading
