Effort Under Way to Weaken U.S. Endangered Species Law

[housewolf]

For the first time in three decades, critics of the Endangered Species Act are building momentum to rewrite the law implemented to save America's threatened flora and fauna, from the star cactus to the grizzly bear.

Weakening the law has been a priority for Republican Western governors, and a second Bush term provides critics of the act a prime opportunity to push the U.S. Congress for changes that would help open up vast stretches of wilderness for development.

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But business leaders say it imposes rules and protections that cost them money and halt commerce.

"I think that the chances for improving and modernizing the act are very high in this Congress," said Jim Sims of The Partnership for the West, a business group that advocates changing the act.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0107-09.htm

[ingasm]

1. Hmmm.

I'm gonna go watch biodome.