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Re: Selling Roosevelt Island?....and losing the red knot

From:

"CURSON, David"

Reply-To:

CURSON, David

Date:

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:04:30 -0400

Dear Ospreyers,

Following up on Denise's posting, there is another Bill  authored by Rep.Pombo likely to be voted on this week, which is of more concern because it has more chance of passing. This Bill (H.R. 3824), nicknamed the "Extinction bill", aims to greatly weaken the Endangered Species Act (see below for details). 

Several weeks ago Audubon Maryland-DC and a number of other groups jointly petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list the "rufa" subspecies of the Red Knot as Endangered and to designate critical habitat i.e. the horseshoe crab breeding areas in the Delaware Bay.  The Pombo Bill would undermine this effort by, among other provisions, prohibiting the USFWS from designating critical habitat for any listed species. In the past 20 years the rufa subspecies of Red Knot has declined from 100,000 to 13,000 - the Pombo Bill would likely send it to extinction rather than allow the USFWS to act for the subspecies' recovery. 

This bill is on the fast track, introduced last Monday September 19th and scheduled for a vote this week. Calls to Congressmen can make a difference - even if it passes the House, the Senate is less likely to pass it if it receives opposition from the public in the process. Several Congressmen in our region are listed as essential to target if this Bill is to be stopped. These are:

Address Title/Name			Party	ST	District	phone #	fax #	email
The Honorable Wayne T. Gilchrest	R	MD	1	202-225-5311	202-225-0254	
The Honorable Michael N. Castle	R	DE	1	202-225-4165	202-225-2291	
The Honorable Jim Gerlach		R	PA	6	202-225-4315	202-225-8440	
The Honorable Curt Weldon		R	PA	7	202-225-2011	202-225-8137					
The Honorable Michael G.Fitzpatrick	R	PA	8	202-225-4276	202-225-9511	
The Honorable Paul E. Kanjorski	D	PA	11	202-225-6511	202-225-0764	
The Honorable John P. Murtha		D	PA	12	202-225-2065	202-225-5709	
The Honorable Tim Holden		D	PA	17	202-225-5546	202-226-0996	
The Honorable Tom Davis			R	VA	11	202-225-1492	202-225-3071	
The Honorable Alan B. Mollohan	D	WV	1	202-225-4172	202-225-7564	

If anyone would like more details of this Bill please contact me offline. 

Key problems with the Bill are that Pombo's bill would:

-	Eviscerate habitat protections for endangered species.  Congressman Pombo's bill would severely limit the federal government's responsibility to protect land it deems crucial to the health of endangered species.  The Extinction Bill would give a green light to developers, loggers and other special interests to degrade and destroy sensitive wildlife habitat. 

-	Bankrupt the Endangered Species Act to pay special interests.   Rep. Pombo's bill would force the federal government to pay special interests when their proposed projects would harm or kill endangered wildlife. There is no requirement that the proposed activity be more than speculative and there is no limit on the number of times a developer can receive compensation for different proposed activities on his or her land.  This provision could bankrupt the Endangered Species Act when the Fish and Wildlife Service is forced to pay.   

-	Gut protections for threatened species.  The bill would eliminate the blanket protection from harm offered for threatened species under current regulations and instead require the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a separate regulation for each threatened species.  Many species could be stripped of protection. 

Dave Curson

David Curson, PhD
Director of Bird Conservation,
Audubon MD-DC,
2437 Eastern Avenue,
Baltimore  MD  21224
Tel: (410) 558 2473
E-mail: