Common sense is coming back into style. I love balance of power.
Rep. Norm Dicks and senior Democrats warned the Interior Department on Wednesday against making major changes in the Endangered Species Act without involving Congress.
The quick and unambiguous response came one day after reports that the Interior Department has been working for months to reinterpret the 1973 law in a way that environmentalists said would gut the primary tool for protecting plants and animals on the verge of extinction.
The Bush administration and some Republicans have been working for years to change the act, which they say is onerous and overly expensive for landowners. At each step, however, Congress has blocked the changes.
The new approach would change the law unilaterally by changing the way it is interpreted. Those changes surfaced in a 117-page document and in departmental memos that discuss ways to restrict the law without needing congressional approval.
Dicks, who spoke Wednesday with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, said he was especially concerned by a proposal that would require extra protection only in areas where endangered species are found.
That would significantly narrow protections because current practice includes habitat that historically supported a species, even if that species no longer lives there.
