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Environmentalists Challenge Political Interference With 55 Endangered Species in 28 States, Seek to Restore 8.7 Million Acres of Protected Habitat Across the Country:

The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a formal notice of intent to sue the Department of the Interior for political interference with 55 endangered species in 28 states. The notice initiates the largest substantive legal action in the 34-year history of the Endangered Species Act.

At stake in the suit is the illegal removal of one animal from the endangered species list, the refusal to place three animals on the list, proposals to remove or downgrade protection for seven animals, and the stripping of protection from 8.7 million acres of critical habitat for a long list of species from Washington State to Minnesota and Texas (see below for species and states affected).

"This is the biggest legal challenge against political interference in the history of the Endangered Species Act," said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "It puts the Bush administration on trial at every level for systematically squelching government scientists and installing a cadre of political hatchet men in positions of power."

Many of the illegal decisions were engineered by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald, who resigned in disgrace following a scathing investigation by the inspector general of misconduct at the Department of the Interior. Other decisions were ordered by her boss, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Craig Manson, his special assistant Randal Bowman, and Ruth Solomon in the White House Office of Management and Budget. Some decisions were ordered by lower-level bureaucrats.

"The Bush administration has tried to keep a lid on its growing endangered species scandal by scapegoating Julie MacDonald," said Suckling, "but the corruption goes much deeper than one disgraced bureaucrat. It reaches into the White House itself through the Office of Management and Budget. By attacking the problem systematically through this national lawsuit, we will expose just how thoroughly the distain for science and for wildlife pervades the Bush administration's endangered species program."

In many of the cases, government and university scientists carefully documented the editing of scientific documents, overruling of scientific experts, and falsification of economic analyses.

Update: Further Information re: the lawsuit against the DOI