Bush to Relax Endangered Species Rules, Moonbats Hardest Hit

Let the caterwauling begin.

Oh wait, it already has.

The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that might harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

...
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

"This proposed regulation is another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door," she said. "If this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the gray whale."
...
"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act."

Anything that can help ease the strangelehold these environmentalists have on our economy and development is a positive thing, hysteria and cliches by special interest notwithstanding.

You have entire areas restricted from development because of piping plovers and other obscure creatures.

As the left so often likes to say, let's use a common sense approach toward this issue and stop restricting progress in deference to environmental extremists.