Stop attacks on Endangered Species Act

Mr. McNerney: Please stop attacks on the Endangered Species Act. Thanks to global warming, our rarest and most precious wildlife have never faced greater odds against survival.

In Yellowstone National Park, the white bark pine seeds that grizzly bears rely on for food are disappearing. Longer droughts threaten to make edible plants scarcer for California's rare bighorn sheep, and Pacific Northwest salmon face hostile changes in water temperatures.

In Florida, the last remaining manatee families are already being battered by more frequent and intense tropical storms. Now these animals have been handed yet another hurdle: the unraveling of the federal law that has protected them for the past three decades, "The Endangered Species Act."

Recently leaked documents reveal that officials at the Interior Department have been rewriting Endangered Species Act regulations, making them friendlier to big timber, developers and industry, and less friendly to the animals they are supposed to protect. Without the Endangered Species Act, many of America's wildlife would have disappeared over the past 30 years. This law is more important now than ever before. We must demand accountability at the Interior Department and stop the administration from gutting the Endangered Species Act behind closed doors.

Last year an investigation showed The Interior Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife, Julie MacDonald altered the research of professional biologists and provided confidential documents to industry friends who are actively fighting Endangered Species protections. If the integrity of the Endangered Species Act is left to the whims of corrupt appointees like MacDonald, our grandchildren may never have the chance to witness the beauty of the grizzly bear or the slow lumbering manatee. They many never taste salmon caught in the wild, and they may only know polar bears and bighorn sheep from photographs in history books.

As global warming threatens wildlife, we need the Endangered Species Act now more than ever. Congress should stop the administration's political interference with this cornerstone environmental law and ensure that our nation's wild legacy is protected for future generations.

Quinn Shands
Lodi

Jerry McNerney's response to Mr. Shands

The current administration has a disturbing record of ignoring and even changing existing laws to suit its political needs.

Political appointees don't necessarily have the best interests of San Joaquin County at heart, including attempts to relax laws that protect whole classes of endangered animals by manipulating scientific findings.

Unfortunately, it's hardly the first time we've seen this, whether it's the weakening of California clean-air laws through administrative decision-making or changing consumer safety laws that have been on the books for decades. The pervasive view that unelected federal government appointees, motivated only by politics, should have the ability to make decisions for the rest of the country is inexcusable; sadly, this is just one more example of power corrupting.

The Endangered Species Act is an important part of our country's species preservation efforts, and regardless of whether you support the current law, the decisions to change it should not be made by a handful of individuals serving narrow interests.

Rep. Jerry McNerney
D-Pleasanton