EDITORIAL: Keep Bald Eagle on Endangered List

By The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

Feb. 23–The government’s plan to take the bald eagle off the Endangered Species Act’s protected list illustrates why the 1973 law needs to be kept strong. …

The law sets strict rules and penalties against killing threatened species and protects their habitats and feeding areas. And it’s working. … Forty-one percent of the act’s listed species have stabilized or even improved their numbers.

Yet the act is under attack by lawmakers who resent its restrictions on property use and development.

The House has passed legislation that would eliminate habitat protections that hamper development. The proposal would let political appointees rather than scientists make decisions about species protection. The changes would gut the most important parts of the law. …

The Bush administration’s proposed budget threatens the act, too. It would cut endangered species funding by $7.7 billion. That’s a significant 10 percent reduction that would hurt oversight and enforcement.

Once covered by the law, a species still takes years to recover. Congress should not wipe out in one session what decades of protection have accomplished.

— The Kansas City Star

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

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