How Interior is responding to comments on ESA revisions

A couple of weeks ago the Natural Resources Defense Council delivered 100,000 comments on proposed revisions to regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act. The revisions would limit the need for federal agencies to consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service when those agencies decide that their actions would not affect listed species.¹

Originally, the comment period was to last only thirty days. Thanks to comments by the American Institute of Biological Sciences and others, the comment period was extended to sixty days. But Kempthorne is clearly committed to ramming these changes through before the Bush administration is replaced in less than three months.

Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, Interior Department officials are attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986. In an e-mail last week to Fish and Wildlife managers across the country, Bryan Arroyo, the head of the agency's endangered species program, said the team would work eight hours a day through Friday to sort through the comments. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's office, according to the e-mail, will be responsible for analyzing and responding to them. The public comment period ended last week, which initiated the review. (news services via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

200,000 comments in 32 hours. That's 6250 comments per hour. With a team of 15 people involved that's one comment every 8.5 seconds per person (not counting bathroom breaks or sanity breaks). Do you think Secretary Kempthorne plans to take the comments seriously?