Green Daily

If you'd like to blame someone for U.S. presidents' tendency to write midnight rules that sometimes drastically impact our country, blame Andrew Jackson. He was a big fan of it, and presidents after him followed suit.

Our own President George W. Bush has recently shoehorned in a rule change that will allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether a project or action will impact endangered species.

Until now, all federal agencies had been required to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether an action would effect threatened species. This was part of the Endangered Species Act. Not so, now. Bureacrats will get to make that decision now.

This is not the first time the Bush administration has made a move such as this. In 2004 the courts struck down a presidential decree that allowed the EPA to act without consultation of FWS or NMFS.

The Department of the Interior made the regulation change, despite 200,000 comments to the contrary. It is possible to revise this rule, but it could take months to do so.

[via CNN]