Earth Day 2011 | Interior Dept Seige Over Endangered Species

Earth Day 2011 | Interior Dept Seige Over Endangered Species AOC Daily Musings

Today’s NYTimes presents a different kind of sustainability quagmire, writing that the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is in ‘emergency triage mode’ trying to manage an ‘avalanche of petitions and lawsuits’ over endangered species lists.

Over the last four years, two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians, have filed 90 percent of the 1230 petitions submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service since 2007. In the prior 20 years, annual requests averaged about 20 per year.

The larger environmental community is divided on this blitz strategy, as the agency asks Congress to impose a cap on the amount of money it can spend on processing listing petitions. The concern is managing workload and — probably more importantly — protecting itself from massive lawsuits. To date, the WildEarth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed 100 lawsuits against the Interior Department for delays.