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Defenders Magazine
Defenders View: The Next President's Agenda
After eight years of unrelenting assaults on the environment, the Bush administration is finally coming to an end—not a moment too soon. Whatever the judgment of history on the administration overall, Bush's record on the environment is certainly the worst in modern times. On issue after issue—including the administration's effort to roll back protection for roadless areas in national forests, its repeated refusals to protect endangered species, its abdication of leadership and responsibility in international efforts to curb global warming, and the politicization of science within federal agencies—the Bush administration has been a disaster. And its assault on wildlife isn't over. Recently the administration announced—apparently as a parting gift to its anti-conservation constituency—it will use Mr. Bush's final months in office to try to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act by severely weakening its implementing regulations.
We desperately need change, and fortunately it's coming. While there are clear differences between the two major candidates for president, either one should be a big improvement over George W. Bush on conservation. In particular, on global warming—the biggest single threat to America's wildlife—both candidates recognize the seriousness of the emissions problem and support meaningful efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to solve it.
To help the new president restore leadership in conservation, Defenders recently released a wildlife conservation agenda for the next administration. We call on the new president to be a strong voice for wildlife conservation and sustainable management of wildlife habitat. In particular, we recommend that the new administration correct the errors of the Bush administration by:
-
ending the political manipulation of science;
- safeguarding America's rarest plants and wildlife;
- making America a leader in addressing global warming
and its impacts;
- restoring America's role as a global leader in wildlife
conservation;
- restoring our connection to nature through education and proper
stewardship of our federal lands; and
- encouraging private landowners, states and tribes to conserve wildlife and habitat.
Among the immediate steps the new president should take is to address the threat of global warming. Working with the new Congress, the president should restore U.S. leadership in international efforts to curb climate change, particularly through supporting substantial cuts in greenhouse gas pollution. But it is critically important that he also promote enactment of legislation like the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act, a bill Defenders worked closely with key members of Congress to develop. This bill increases federal science capacity to develop measures to help wildlife survive global warming; requires the federal government, in cooperation with states and tribes, to develop and implement a national strategy to assist wildlife and habitat to survive global warming impacts; and provides dedicated funding for these initiatives from the sale of greenhouse gas pollution allowances.
In addition, the new president should take several more steps to restore our commitment to conservation of wildlife and habitat. For example, he should work with Congress to renew and strengthen the Endangered Species Act, our most important conservation law, and restore scientific integrity to its implementation. The new president should also ensure that gray wolves in the northern Rockies and Southwest, and red wolves in the Southeast, remain under federal protection until they are fully recovered. And he should ensure that his administration fully enforces the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to outlaw the obscene killing of wolves, bears and other predators from airplanes in Alaska and anywhere else in the country.
After eight years of decisions based on what is best for the special interests—rather than what is best for the American people—undoing the damage done by the Bush administration will not be easy. The next president faces a huge challenge, but also a tremendous opportunity. He should work to restore our country's historic commitment to conservation and assume a leadership role in combating global warming, habitat destruction, species extinction and other threats to the planet. I encourage you as voters to carefully consider which candidate is best able and most likely to meet this challenge. And I pledge to you that Defenders will do everything we can to make the new administration a conservation success story.
