WASHINGTON, May 30, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- Calling it "just the first of this year's likely crop of anti-environmental riders on appropriations bills," Brock Evans, Executive Director of the national Endangered Species Coalition, today called upon the Bush Administration to abandon its proposal to drastically weaken the landmark Endangered Species Act.
Evans made his plea in Washington D.C., as environmentalists, joined by world-famous scientist Dr. Jane Goodall, religious leaders, conservationists, and celebrities across the nation, held press conferences in several U.S. cities simultaneously today. The Bush Administration has asked Congress to change the ESA through a little-known process of inserting legal language into the annual bill allocating money to resources programs, known as a "rider."
Evans presented letters to Congress, signed by nearly 600 scientists and grassroots citizen groups across the nation, demanding that the law be kept intact. The Bush proposal would not only effectively nullify legal provisions allowing citizens to enforce the law, but would also leave decisions about future protections for imperiled species up to the Secretary of Interior.
The scientists, expressing their alarm about what they termed 'one of the greatest environmental threats facing this nation -- the extinction of untold numbers of species of plants and animals, and the destruction of entire ecosystems,' pointed out that biodiversity provides the U.S. with approximately $319 billion a year in economic and environmental benefits. "As human beings, we have a clear moral imperative to address this crisis, but we also must do so out of sheer self interest," the signers said.
"Today the American people clearly remind Congress that they want their vanishing heritage to be protected -- and that they will not tolerate any back room deals behind closed doors which remove those protections," Evans said.
"The solution to this crisis is not to kick ordinary citizens out of the process, but rather -- as the scientists and grassroots groups urge -- to ensure enough funding so that the federal protective agencies can do their job, before it is too late."
The Endangered Species Coalition was formed in 1982 to "protect America's biological heritage and to defend the Endangered Species Act." An 'organization of organizations' based in Washington D.C., it counts more than 430 religious, scientific, business, environmental, and humane groups among its diverse membership.
-0-
CONTACT: The Endangered Species Coalition
Brock Evans
(202) 789-2844, ext. 132