People Think Obama Should Oppose Wolf Delisting Because Bush Supported It

It appears maybe Barack Obama will have his recent statement that all his decisions will be based on science tested immediately. Shortly before leaving office, the Bush administration once again announced plans to remove protection of the gray wolf. Upon Obama’s taking over the White House, an order was sent out suspending all pending actions by the Bush administration. This included the wolf delisting proposal.

Ken Salazar took over at the Department of Interior and recently it was announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would proceed with the proposal Bush and then Sec. Dirk Kempthorne had devised. Needless to say this angered a lot of people who, it seems, just assumed that Obama would oppose delisting because it was a Bush initiative.

From the Washington Post:

While the White House declined to comment on Salazar’s move, it has clearly caused a headache for the administration. Lawmakers have called senior Obama aides to question the decision, environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to probe the decision-making process, and experts inside and outside the administration predict that the issue will end up in court.

Interesting enough, the WaPo article seems to be suggesting that Ken Salazar acted on his own in making this decision, even quoting Norman J. Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

“where they’re used to making their own decisions and going ahead with them.”

“It takes a while to get your sea legs on that front, especially if you’re a member of Congress,” Ornstein said.

But it gets better. The article cites an “anonymous” House democrat.

“I just don’t see what this does for us,” the lawmaker said. “Here we are alienating people who did the most — who did a lot to help us in the last election.”

This statement seems to me to indicate quite strongly that certain members must believe that Obama “owes” them, perhaps for campaign votes, and should have opted to not delist the wolf. So much for science.

Bob Irvin, senior vice president for Defenders of Wildlife, seems to think Salazar operated on his own.

“Making the decision to adopt the Bush administration’s flawed delisting proposal the same week that the president pledged his commitment to the Endangered Species Act certainly calls into question whether the Interior Department was coordinating as closely as one would expect to have done with the White House,”………. “This was a controversy that did not need to happen.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist’s brain to realize that if delisting was going to proceed, the case would end up in court and that’s surely where it is headed as massive numbers of environmental groups have already promised. What will be interesting in this case is that for the first time, at least in recent memory, you’ll have supporters of the Obama election pitted against Obama’s administration.

Add to that interesting cocktail the question of how will the judges react who have to this point ruled in opposition to George W. Bush, not necessarily for the wolves. If I’m sitting in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming, I’m understanding that we may never get control over wolves and there’s a good chance to be witness to the disappearance of deer, moose and elk, along with many other wildlife species.

We know that Obama stated he will use science in making environmental decisions. The question remains whose science will he use? See ya’ll in court!

Tom Remington