Posted on 08/10/2006 5:51:27 PM PDT by freedomdefender
Court Orders Feds to Stop Stalling and Delist Bald Eagle Within Six Months
Contact: Damien Schiff Pacific Legal Foundation
Minneapolis,MN; August 10, 2006: Early delisting of the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act list became almost a certainty today after a federal District Court in Minneapolis today set a deadline for the delisting. The ruling came in a case Contoski v. Scarlett brought by Pacific Legal Foundation, representing Minnesota landowner Edmund Contoski. PLF had asked the Court to order the United States Department of Interior to stop stalling and make good on its earlier promise to remove the bald eagle from "threatened" status under the ESA. The Court agreed with PLF and set February 16, as the government’s deadline for delisting.
"All the science shows that the bald eagle is fully recovered and not threatened or endangered," said PLF attorney, Damien Schiff. "Recognizing this fact, the Department of Interior has indicated for the past seven years that it intends to "delist" the eagle. But it has been dragging its feet on actually taking that step -- even though it was under statutory obligation to move more quickly. By ordering federal regulators to delist by a date certain, the federal court has struck a blow for accountability in bureaucracy and for the principle that regulators must abide by the law, and the law’s deadlines."
"Because defendants (federal officials) have failed to comply with the mandatory deadline set forth in the ESA, the Court must compel defendants to act," wrote Judge John R. Tunheim in his ruling today.
In 1999, former President Bill Clinton held a press conference before the Fourth of July weekend with a bald eagle named "Challenger," announcing that the species was recovered and would be removed from the Endangered Species list. More than six years later, the bald eagle is still on the list -- despite the fact that in May, 2004, a Bush administration official said the species would be delisted by the end of last year.
The delay is a direct violation of the Endangered Species Act," said attorney Schiff. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially proposed to remove the bald eagle July 6, 1999, and under the ESA was required to complete the process -- either by making the proposed rule final or by withdrawing the proposal -- within one year."
"Today, there are more bald eagles than in 1999, but it still has not been removed from the list," said PLF attorney, Damien Schiff. "We simply asked the government to do what it said it would do -- and we are happy that a federal court has issued an order to that effect."
Once the bald eagle is removed from the Endangered Species list, the species will continue to be protected by two other federal laws -- the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The acts prohibit the taking, harming, or killing, of the bird.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the lower 48 states had fewer than 500 mating pairs of bald eagles in the 1960s. In 1999, when President Clinton made his announcement, there were 5,748 nesting pairs. Today, there are, by some estimates, more than 8,200.
The bald eagle’s recovery is widely credited to the banning of DDT in 1972. By 1995, the bald eagle’s numbers had increased so significantly that the government downlisted the species from "endangered" to "threatened." Four years later, President Clinton said that the "bald eagle is now back from the brink, thriving in virtually every state of the Union."
"The federal court today agreed with PLF that it’s time for the government to stop dragging its feet and make official what President Clinton said seven years ago," Schiff said.
About Pacific Legal Foundation Pacific Legal Foundation is the oldest and largest public interest legal organization dedicated to property rights, limited government, and a balanced approach to environmental protection.
ping
Communists.
Gosh, if HE said it, I believe it.
No, the court struck a blow for making sure the agency, belatedly, did their job in this particular instance with no disincentive for similar shirking in the future. ACCOUNTABILITY would have been if somebody high up in the agency went to prison, or lost their job, or got the needle.
I'm about to be delisted. Finally!
-- Sounds like you don't work for government. --
Penn & Teller's "Bullsh!t" exposed the ESA, showing that the Act has not saved one single animal species.
"I'm about to be delisted."
< grin > But I'd rather respect you as a national symbol than have you list-able at all by bureaucrats. If they can unlist you, they can LIST you.
When bald eagles are outlawed, only raptors will have guns. Something like that. ;^)
Seriously again, the ultimate irony would be for Marxists to seize something like the National Cathedral because it endangered eaglets or kangaroo rats...or KELO it for a shopping center.
Ya think?
Good Lord, they're getting to be as bad as Canadian Geese. < /sarcasm>
But I'll tell you, if I take a job, I do so with the intention of getting the job done. And if I agree publicly that a certain course of action is advisable, I get it done in a HELL of a lot less time than seven years, and would expect to face consequences if I failed to do so.
On top of that, consequences should be harsher for those sucking off the productive sector, not less. WE don't get paid with tax dollars.
ping
What does this mean?
If the eagle gets delisted, it is huntable?
Ach! By me or other patriots, NEVER! Moral code. But by some, certainly. Presently they're called poachers....
So, we want to leave the eagle listed to protect it from poachers because it is a national symbol?
::spell it out for me, I'm blonde. I know the species act is a socialist abused agenda driven group::
There's one nesting in a cell tower behind the Piggly Wiggly a couple of blocks from my house here in Charleston,SC.
---no. what it means is that the eagle - or eagle's nests - can't be used by environmentalists as an excuse to block landowners from making productive use of their property.
Then why did Clinton want the eagle delisted?
I'm leary of what he supports and why.
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