Calif. sues to block Bush endangered species rules

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California has filed suit against the Bush administration to block last-minute endangered species regulations that are intended to reduce input from federal scientists, Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Tuesday.

Brown said the president is trying to gut the Endangered Species Act before he leaves office next month.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science," Brown said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This is the latest assault as Bush goes out the door. It's intolerable."

The state's lawsuit was filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The Interior Department issued the revised rules earlier this month. They allow federal agencies to issue permits for mining, logging and similar activities without getting a review from federal wildlife biologists if their own research shows the project will not affect plants and animals.

The changes also block agencies from using the Endangered Species Act to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on ecosystems when reviewing projects such as new roads or coal plants on federal land.

Interior Department spokeswoman Tina Kreisher declined to comment on the California lawsuit. She said the revised rules will continue to protect threatened and endangered species.

"The law says that all federal agencies will ensure that no take occurs of a listed species whatever it is they are doing," she said.

The lawsuit also names the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service as defendants.

Brown is asking the court to block the new rules, which could give the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama time to review them.

Obama has said he would work to reverse the changes. Because they take effect before he is sworn in, Obama would have to restart a lengthy rule-making process that could last up to a year.

"If these regulations go into effect, they could be in for many months," Brown said. "By suing, we set up the possibility of a settlement with the Obama administration that could end them."

Three environmental groups also have filed lawsuits challenging the revisions, which they say erode protections for endangered species.

Current rules require biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to sign off on dams, power plants, timber sales and other projects even when it is determined they are not likely to harm species.

The revised rules will reduce the independent reviews that government scientists have performed for 35 years. The idea is to accelerate a process that developers and other federal agencies have blamed for delays and cost increases.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations for projects proposed for federal land. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

California's lawsuit alleges that the Department of Interior failed to adequately consider public comments critical of the revisions before it finalized the rules. It also claims that the revisions, if allowed to go into effect, could lead to the possible extinction of endangered and threatened species, a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

California is home to 310 plant and animal species listed as endangered or threatened by the federal government, more than any state except Hawaii, according to the complaint.

Interior officials have said agencies still can seek the expertise of federal wildlife biologists on a voluntary basis. They say the new rules include safeguards to ensure endangered species are protected.

For example, projects will be fast-tracked only where there is no impact on endangered species, a project might improve conditions for a species or the effect is so minimal that it can't be measured, Kreisher said.