The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.
New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.
The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.
"We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good," Kempthorne said in a news conference organized quickly after AP reported details of the proposal. "It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species."
If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1986. They would accomplish through regulations what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.
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.
Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the United States listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.
The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft obtained by the AP.
"We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," the proposal said.
The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, H. Dale Hall, said the changes would help focus expertise on "where we know we don't have a negative effect on the species but where the agency is vulnerable if we don't complete a consultation."
Responding to questions about the process, Hall said, "We will not do anything that leaves the public out of this process."
The new rules were expected to be formally proposed immediately, officials said. They would be subject to a 60-day public comment period before being finalized by the Interior Department, giving the administration enough time to impose them before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.
The proposal was drafted largely by attorneys in the general counsel's offices of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Interior Department, according to an official with the National Marine Fisheries Service, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan hadn't yet been circulated publicly. The two agencies' experts were not consulted until last week, the official said.
Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.
The reviews have helped safeguard protected species such as bald eagles, Florida panthers and whooping cranes. A federal government handbook from 1998 described the consultations as "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."
In recent years, however, some federal agencies and private developers have complained that the process results in delays and increased construction costs.
"We have always had concerns with respect to the need for streamlining and making it a more efficient process," said Joe Nelson, a lawyer for the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, a trade group for home builders and the paper and farming industry.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, 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."
The Bush administration and Congress have attempted with mixed success to change the law.
In 2003, the administration imposed similar rules that would have allowed agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without asking the opinion of government scientists about whether threatened or endangered species and habitats might be affected. The pesticide rule was later overturned in court. The Interior Department, along with the Forest Service, is currently being sued over the rule governing wildfire prevention.
In 2005, the House passed a bill that would have made similar changes to the Endangered Species Act, but the bill died in the Senate.
The sponsor of that bill, then-House Resources chairman Richard Pombo, R-California, told the AP Monday that allowing agencies to judge for themselves the effects of a project will not harm species or habitat.
"There is no way they can rubber stamp everything because they will end up in court for every decision," he said.
But internal reviews by the National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that about half the unilateral evaluations by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management that determined wildfire prevention projects were unlikely to harm protected species were not legally or scientifically valid.
Those had been permitted under the 2003 rule changes.
"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."
By Tanya Schevitz, SF Chronicle
Record numbers of college students are lining up for financial aid - and asking for more of it - as the nation's economic woes hit campuses across the country.
Nationally, 8.9 million students filed federal student aid forms during the first half of 2008, a 16.3 percent increase over the same period last year.
In California, 999,594 students requested federal financial aid during that period - an increase of nearly 20 percent. Bay Area campuses reflect the same trend.
From Santa Clara University and San Jose State University in the South Bay to UC Berkeley and Mills College in the East Bay, financial aid officers say families are increasingly struggling to pay rising college costs while they deal with layoffs, home foreclosures and skyrocketing living expenses.
"What we are seeing is more people filling out requests for financial aid, and for those who do, more people are qualifying and the aggregate need is increasing," said Richard Toomey, associate vice provost at the private Santa Clara University. "Students who haven't needed assistance before are coming in. You had to expect that this was going to happen with all the news of companies laying off thousands of people."
While individual campuses are still sorting out the numbers, data from the U.S. Department of Education show that far more students are filling out the federal financial aid forms than in the past.
The federal data show a 20 percent increase in applications from Santa Clara University students, 21.6 percent from those at San Jose State, 17.1 percent at Mills College, and 19.4 percent at UC Berkeley.
"It does show a pretty dramatic increase," said Justin Draeger, a spokesman for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. The need for financial aid has been rising in the past few years, he said, but given the slumping economy, it is not surprising that it is more acute this year.
In addition, he said, California and other states facing budget problems are contributing less to public colleges and universities. As a result, many universities systems such as the University of California and California State University are increasing tuition.
Ricardo Vazquez, a spokesman for the 220,000-student UC system, said the university is increasing financial aid.
"We expect UC undergraduates to receive about $1 billion in grants and scholarships from UC this year in state, federal aid and other sources, and that is about $100 million more than our students received in 2007-08," he said.
Some private universities, such as Stanford, which have multibillion-dollar endowments, have launched efforts to cushion many of their students who need aid, such as eliminating tuition for students whose parents earn less than $100,000 a year.
But many other private schools are struggling to meet their students' needs. At Santa Clara University, for example, the financial need unmet by federal aid for students has increased 33 percent, from $15 million to $20 million this year.
Hillarie Woods, 19, who should be entering her sophomore year at Santa Clara University this fall, said she might have to drop out because she cannot get enough financial aid to cover the school's $34,950 tuition and her living expenses.
Her mother, a mortgage underwriter, lost her job in November and has been unable to find new employment, Woods said.
"It is the economy. I tried calling the financial aid office many times. They say there is nothing they can do about it. They said they just don't have enough federal aid, and they don't have anything else to give me," she said. "Because my FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) says what my mom made last year, the government won't give me aid either."
Her sister Kaleigh, 18, will be a freshman this fall at UC Santa Cruz, which increased her grant package after she told the school about her changed financial circumstances.
But most institutions don't have the money to provide students the extra help they need in scholarships and grants, Toomey said.
"We are talking to families who are seeing really bad economic times. Investments no longer hold their value. I expect we will see more unemployed parents," said Priscilla Muha, director of financial aid at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga.
While four-year schools saw a rise in financial need among students and their families during the dot-com bust of 2000, this time it is worse, financial aid officers say.
Instead of seeing just one parent out of work, more students are coming in with two unemployed parents. And there are many going through foreclosure on their homes.
Some of the increase in federal aid applications at individual schools could be connected to a rise in applications but financial aid officers say that they are also seeing an increasing need among families for help in paying for college.
"We are seeing students whose parents in the past have been able to get money from equity lines. Those sources are drying up, and the cost of living and tuition has gone up, and so that contributes to it," said Jeff Bialik, vice president for finance and enrollment management at Dominican University in San Rafael. "Last year and the year before, it was a lot easier to get money."
The 2,100-student Dominican campus has increased its scholarship funding by about $1 million this year and has bumped up the percentage of tuition going to financial aid from 39 percent to 41 percent.
Coleeta McElroy, interim director of financial aid at San Jose State University, said she has noticed a higher need of financial aid across the board for students.
"It is just the change in the economy," she said. "We have awarded aid to more students. And more students are seeing the need to take out loans."
David Gin, associate vice president for student finance at Mills College in Oakland, said his office is seeing a lot more families appealing their financial aid packages than it has in the past.
"We had a number of students who have had the economic hard times of parents losing jobs or their assets. What they can liquidate now is different than in January or February, when they filed their forms," Gin said.
Because he can't meet all the new financial need, his office is extending repayment plans beyond the normal term and is even helping families to erase adverse credit marks to make getting loans easier.
He said he hopes students won't end up dropping out.
"I wouldn't be surprised that if in the next couple weeks, those that we haven't heard from may decide (not to come). We are working very hard to prevent that," Gin said.
"It's these sorts of appearances of a conflict of interest that are a natural consequence of having a campaign run by lobbyists, staffed by lobbyists and being ensconced in a lobbyist culture for over a quarter of a century," Sevugan said.
By Matthew Mosk and Jeffrey H. Bimbaum
Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.
The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.
The McCain campaign said Georgia's lobbying contract with Orion Strategies had no bearing on the candidate's decision to speak with President Mikheil Saakashvili and did not influence his statement. "The Embassy of Georgia requested the call," said campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.
But ethics experts have raised concerns about former lobbyists for foreign governments providing advice to presidential candidates about those same countries. "The question is, who is the client? Is the adviser loyal to income from a foreign client, or is he loyal to the candidate he is working for now?" said James Thurber, a lobbying expert at American University. "It's dangerous if you're getting advice from people who are very close to countries on one side or another of a conflict."
At the time of McCain's call, Scheunemann had formally ceased his own lobbying work for Georgia, according to federal disclosure reports. But he was still part of Orion Strategies, which had only two lobbyists, himself and Mike Mitchell.
Scheunemann remained with the firm for another month, until May 15, when the McCain campaign imposed a tough new anti-lobbyist policy and he was required to separate himself from the company.
Rogers said Scheunemann "receives no compensation of any type from Orion Strategies and has not since May 15, 2008." Scheunemann declined to be interviewed for this story.
As a private lobbyist trying to influence lawmakers and Bush administration staffers, Scheunemann at times relied on his access to McCain in his work for foreign clients on Capitol Hill. He and his partner reported 71 phone conversations and meetings with McCain and his top advisers since 2004 on behalf of foreign clients, including Georgia, according to forms they filed with the Justice Department.
The contacts often focused on Georgia's aspirations to join NATO and on legislative proposals, including a measure co-sponsored by McCain that supported Georgia's position on South Ossetia, one of the Georgian regions taken over by Russia this weekend.
Another measure lobbied by Orion and co-sponsored by McCain, the NATO Freedom Consolidation Act of 2006, would have authorized a $10 million grant for Georgia.
For months while McCain's presidential campaign was gearing up, Scheunemann held dual roles, advising the candidate on foreign policy while working as Georgia's lobbyist. Between Jan. 1, 2007, and May 15, 2008, the campaign paid Scheunemann nearly $70,000 to provide foreign policy advice. During the same period, the government of Georgia paid his firm $290,000 in lobbying fees.
Since 2004, Orion has collected $800,000 from the government of Georgia.
Rogers said Orion's representation of Georgia had no bearing on McCain's decision to speak with Saakashvili in April.
"The Embassy of Georgia requested the call because of Georgian concerns over recent Russian actions dealing with South Ossetia and Abkhazia," he said.
McCain has said that he has worked closely with Georgia and its top officials since the mid-1990s. On the campaign trail yesterday, McCain referred to Saakashvili as a close friend.
But Rogers acknowledged that "Scheunemann and others on the foreign policy staff are involved in call requests and statements on foreign policy issues."
After the April call, McCain issued a statement that day voicing support for Georgia's position.
"We must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty," McCain said in the statement. "Georgia has acted with restraint in its response and should continue to do so."
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it may be impossible to know whether Scheunemann's advice to McCain was truly unvarnished.
"The question is, whose views are you really espousing?" Sloan said. "Are they really your own views, or are they the views that are bought and paid for by the clients of your top aides? McCain probably would be sympathetic to Georgia regardless, but having a guy like Scheunemann as a top aide raises questions."
Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, said Scheunemann's business ties to Georgia raise questions about how much he influenced McCain's position on the Georgia conflict.
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