Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Jamie Rappaport Clark, President & CEO

Hurricane Sandy From space (c)NASA

President Obama has made it clear that he’s setting his sights on climate change in his second term.  In his State of the Union address, he said that “for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.”  He went on to acknowledge the weather disasters of 2012 and challenged Congress to act, echoing his inaugural speech: “We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and act before it’s too late.”

The president vowed that “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” and promised to create “executive actions…to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”  With this speech, President Obama is poised to begin a second term that makes a difference in the fight against climate change.

Although there were many lost opportunities for responding to climate change during Obama’s first term, there also were some quiet success stories involving a series of initiatives to make our nation and natural resources more resilient to the impacts of climate change.  Early on, President Obama established the Interagency Climate Adaptation Task Force, which has expanded coordination on wildlife and plant adaptation issues and raised the level of attention on adaptation throughout the federal government.  The administration also published a national strategy for managing freshwater resources in response to climate change, and a landmark draft national wildlife adaptation strategy for making wildlife and ecosystems more resilient to climate impacts (the final strategy is still pending).  Finally, the president advanced solar, wind and other renewable energies and significantly raised fuel emissions standards for automobiles.

These initiatives, however, remained in the shadows in fear of Congressional and electoral attacks and have yet to change agency programs on the ground at the scale needed to combat the problem.  But with the climate reality of record-setting storms, wildfires, droughts, floods and heat waves, the president needs to take his gloves off and combat these issues head on and in public.

It’s time for the president to take the next steps in an aggressive approach that addresses the emissions that cause climate change and proactively prepares for the impacts we are already facing:

Development in flood-prone areas puts wetland ecosystems in danger.

Rebuild and Restore, Responsibly.  After a major weather disaster, the pressure is on to repair damage quickly.  But quick shouldn’t mean rash.  Some response efforts can harm natural systems and make things worse like when earth-moving or building seawalls after flooding damages wetlands.  But as Defenders of Wildlife showed in our Harnessing Nature report, many natural areas such as wetlands, dunes and forests are themselves effective buffers against extreme weather.  We should be managing them strategically to make them as resilient as possible, whether there’s been a recent extreme weather event or not.

Factor it in.  We’ve heard it over and over again: climate change is affecting us now, and it’s not going away any time soon.  But even though the administration has released high-level adaptation policies, many federal agencies still aren’t accounting for climate change when planning their programs.  Future storms, flooding and fires will be more frequent and severe than what we’ve seen recently.  Accepting and planning for climate change now won’t just save time, money and property later.  It could also save human lives and mean the difference between survival and extinction for many wildlife species.

Bring it all together.  Information about climate change science can be fragmented and hard to access for the public and lawmakers alike.  We need to create a “one-stop shop” for climate change information that collects the latest data and analysis, presents it in a way that’s accurate and easy to understand for decision makers and the public and conveys it through all types of media: TV, radio, publications and the web.

Connect it.  Climate change is forcing wildlife from their traditional ranges. Species are on the move, but we have fragmented the landscape with our roads, houses, industrial areas, farm fields and fences.  We need to protect more wildlife habitat and make sure it is connected to allow species to respond to climate impacts and shift to more hospitable habitat.  These natural areas will in turn provide us with clean water, flood protection, replenishment of our groundwater, open space and recreation.

President Obama says he is committed to facing these issues.  Now he has the opportunity to make good on this promise.

For those of us who had hoped Barack Obama’s election would finally restore and strengthen protections for imperiled wildlife and natural ecosystems, the results to date have been a letdown. Many voters are extremely disappointed or even angry about his record on wildlife conservation, and I suspect President Obama underestimates the significance of this widespread and well-founded discontent among many who tended to be his strong supporters.

Candidate Obama consistently said that dealing with environmental problems—especially climate change, the number one threat to protecting the rich biological diversity that supports all life on Earth—would be one of his top priorities. Believing that, the House of Representatives acted quickly once President Obama was in office to approve comprehensive climate change legislation and send it to the Senate. The House bill curbed greenhouse gas emissions and set up a mechanism to help protect wildlife and biological diversity. But the President failed to put his political muscle into pushing the Senate to act. Then the long drawn-out battle over health care followed by his party’s loss of numerous House and Senate seats in 2010  doomed any chance of enacting climate change legislation for the foreseeable future – a missed opportunity that will result in considerable unnecessary environmental damage.

The opportunity for legislative action lost, one of the President’s strongest environmental appointments, energy policy “czar” Carol Browner, (former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Clinton) resigned after only two years in office. The White House’s decision not to push for climate change legislation likely further emboldened oil and gas industry champions in Congress determined to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act. Their efforts were only narrowly averted in the 2011 budget bill. Given its weak performance to date, it is reasonable to wonder just how firmly the White House will continue to stand by Lisa Jackson, EPA’s strong administrator, and fight future efforts to limit EPA’s authority.

Unfortunately, climate change is not the only issue affected by Obama’s  timid legislative approach. The explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago dramatically underscored the need for stricter regulation of offshore oil drilling to protect our oceans and coasts and the people and wildlife that depend on them. But is the White House fighting for tougher new laws to assure that nothing like this event that triggered the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history will ever happen again? No. Obama did appoint a stellar commission that made thoughtful and important recommendations for stronger offshore drilling regulation, but he has yet to push for reform legislation – and each passing week whatever opportunity there is to win needed reforms grows smaller. Although a few stalwart environmental leaders have introduced reform bills, others in Congress have interpreted the administration’s congressional inaction as an opportunity to promote more unsafe drilling in more places. These places include Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, where  marine ecosystems are even more fragile and vulnerable to devastation from oil spills than in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not only has the President failed to push for desperately needed legislation, he [supported his Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who, with no consultation and no warning, adopted the Bush administration’s plan to remove federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies based on political boundaries rather than the science required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). When conservationists sued and a federal court overturned his illegal action, Secretary Salazar actively encouraged Congress to enact legislation removing federal protection from Northern Rockies wolves, ignoring the court’s decision. And the White House did nothing to stop it.

For the first time in the nearly 40-year history of the ESA, Congress—with the complicity of the Obama administration—has intervened to remove all protection from a listed species. If, as many fear, this turns out to be a precedent for additional legislation blocking protection for endangered species, the damage to our ability to safeguard imperiled plants and animals essential to the web of life will be incalculable. In the past, conservationists have successfully defeated equally destructive attempts by anti-environmental administrations to weaken the ESA. Preventing an administration perceived to be in favor of environmental protection from undermining our nation’s most important law for conserving biological diversity is nearly impossible. It should be noted that the President has used his administrative authority to do some good things for conservation. For instance, the Obama administration designated more than 187,000 square miles as critical habitat for polar bears (listed as “threatened” under the ESA), the largest such designation in history.

For the first time in the nearly 40-year history of the ESA, Congress—with the complicity of the Obama administration—has intervened to remove all protection from a listed species. If, as many fear, this turns out to be a precedent for additional legislation blocking protection for endangered species, the damage to our ability to safeguard imperiled plants and animals essential to the web of life will be incalculable.

But this is an administration much too quick to turn and run when anti-conservationists bark. Their kowtowing to the Republican-controlled House and abandoning their own pro wilderness policy for federal lands, barely five months after establishing it, is just the latest example.  They still say they are sticking by their proposed America’s Great Outdoors initiative, which could put renewed emphasis on conserving more of our nation’s vanishing wildlands, but with the same  congressional opposition pushing against it, it is hard to see much hope that  this initiative will achieve anything significant.

Clearly the President’s overall conservation record to date is negative.  Whether he can yet earn a passing grade for this four-year term likely depends upon the final form of two significant Obama administration conservation regulatory proposals—a rewrite of the rules that govern the stewardship of our  193 million acres of national forests and grasslands, and new guidelines for energy development on public lands.

The current regulations for managing national forests, which were written by the Reagan administration, have protected wildlife reasonably well, but they need updating and strengthening.  President George W. Bush’s attempt at a rewrite produced rules that were distinctly pro-logging and overturned in federal court in a suit brought by Defenders. The new set of regulations recently proposed by the Obama administration offer strong statements of intent to conserve wildlife but leave implementation so much to the discretion of individual forest managers that political influence, particularly in an anti-environmental administration, could render stated conservation intentions meaningless. Defenders and other conservationists have made the serious shortcomings of these proposed new rules clear to the administration. Now we wait for their response.

We also wait to see how Obama will handle the development of the utility-scale solar energy projects the Interior Department is vigorously promoting on 22 million acres of western public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Conservationists, of course, applaud the development of solar projects to supplant dirty fossil fuel energy plants. But we are strongly encouraging the administration to issue standards that guide these massive solar s projects, each of which can sprawl across thousands of acres and consume enormous amounts of water, to locations where they will not cause significant harm to fragile desert wildlife and ecosystems. Locating the massive projects in this manner should also hasten their actual development by minimizing the threat of environmental lawsuits. Whether they follow such a course, or opt instead to take an overly permissive direction that sacrifices wildlife and habitat to energy development on public lands, remains to be seen.

Obama’s record to date gives us no reason for optimism on forest protections and energy development guidelines. His administration’s conservation record falls far short of what it promised, what was expected of it and – most importantly – what we need. Our major environmental problems, especially those caused by climate change and loss of species and habitat, are huge and growing and will cause future generations great anguish and difficulty if our political leaders fail to lead.  Unfortunately, President Obama’s instinct seems to be to avoid tough battles, relying on the argument that even as his record falls short, his administration is better on conservation than the previous one and better than any likely to succeed him should his re-election effort fall short.

Our major environmental problems, especially those caused by climate change and loss of species and habitat, are huge and growing and will cause future generations great anguish and difficulty if our political leaders fail to lead.

That argument simply isn’t acceptable. Avoiding serious action, or–to use one of the President’s own phrases–“continuing to kick the can down the road” to another administration, will only result in our most serious environmental problems continuing to grow faster than society’s capacity to solve them. The dangers are too great to give the President a pass on environmental leadership. Those of us who care about the fate of the planet and generations to come must demand real progress that promises to solve our very real problems. For conservation, the future has to be now.

In President Obama’s acknowledgment today of the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil disaster, he failed to mention the enormous losses sustained by the Gulf ecosystem – not only to a fishing-dependent economy but to the thousands of animals killed or harmed by toxic oil and dispersants that persist in natural habitats even today.

Defenders’ president and CEO, Rodger Schlickeisen, said, “The president’s failure to acknowledge the tragic loss and continued impacts on wildlife and natural habitat in the Gulf left a gaping hole in today’s statement. This oil spill is the biggest environmental disaster in our history, and the president should have recognized the ongoing harm being caused.

Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen

“Oil continues to wash up on beaches and pollute coastal marshes. And we can only hope that for many of the Gulf species, including pelicans, endangered sea turtles, numerous migratory birds, dolphins, bluefin tuna and other marine fish species, the spill will not be the final blow to their prospects for long-term survival. As far as we can tell now, the region’s coastal and marine environments may never be the same.

“We are dismayed that in the year since this huge, human-caused disaster occurred, the Obama administration has still not pushed for legislation that would reform a badly broken offshore drilling system and ensure protection for workers, wildlife and the waters on which we all depend. President Obama must not forget that his responsibility to clean up the mess in the Gulf includes making sure such a catastrophe never again happens off of America’s coasts.”

“As far as we can tell now, the region’s coastal and marine environments may never be the same.”

Take Action:

One year later, Defenders continues to fight for wildlife in the Gulf. Click here to learn more about what we’re doing and see what YOU can do to help!

Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen

As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comes under attack this week, the National Journal’s Energy and Expert blog asked, What Should Obama do with EPA’s Carbon Rules?

Defenders’ President and CEO Rodger Schlickeisen says, “President Obama: Stand firm behind EPA.” Read on to hear more…

Spring is in the air. And for many parts of the country, the sun is shining, birds are singing and flowers are beginning to bloom. It’s that time of year when we feel a natural pull to step outside, shake off the winter blues and take a deep breath of fresh air. But what if that air was suddenly dangerous to inhale? What if simply stepping outside and taking a deep breath actually risked your health?

That’s exactly what we face if members of Congress who seek to strip the administration of its ability to reduce life-threatening air pollution such as mercury, lead and carbon dioxide are successful in tacking certain policy riders onto the budget resolution this week. And it isn’t just the health of Americans they will put at risk –greenhouse gas pollution that contributes to climate change will continue to threaten our air, water, lands and wildlife as well.

Forty years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency was borne out of an environmental crisis that – with the glaring assistance of Ohio’s Cuyahoga River – could no longer be ignored. Now, instead of a single river catching fire, our entire planet is heating up. The impacts of climate change are already being felt by our wildlife and natural resources across the country, and they only promise to get worse. We can’t wait any longer to act.

The partisan-gridlock that paralyzes the current Congress has made it virtually impossible for effective clean energy legislation to progress. Which means that right now, the only mechanism protecting our fundamental right to breathe clean air and drink clean water is the EPA.

President Obama needs to take a firm stand behind the EPA and uphold its mission to protect American air, water and lands from harmful substances in addition to greenhouse gas pollution. Unlike the members of Congress who are shamelessly kowtowing to the selfish interests of the dirty polluters who bankroll their campaigns, the President should demonstrate that he is not willing to sacrifice the health of American people and natural resources to profit oil and coal companies who, in his own words, are “doing just fine on their own.”

We shouldn’t have to make a choice between the health of our country and whether or not our government has the money to run. By taking a strong stand against riders that would handcuff the EPA’s ability to regulate harmful greenhouse gas emissions, President Obama will send the message that dirty polluters won’t get away with dirtying our air and water.

Learn more:

Read the full question and other responses on the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Expert Blog.

See how Defenders is working to protect American lands and wildlife from the harmful effects of climate change.

Although the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded not even a year ago, claiming 11 lives and setting off the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, Congress has launched a major push for more drilling.

BREAKING: President Obama’s speech today touting efforts to rein in foreign oil consumption comes amid a major push in Congress for more high-risk domestic drilling and weaker environmental safeguards.

Defenders of Wildlife, however, is calling on the Obama administration and Congress to focus less on dirty, fossil fuel production and more on safe, renewable energy development.

The following is a statement from Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife:

“Thankfully President Obama is confronting our addiction to oil. While we don’t agree with everything the President said today, particularly his short-term plan to ramp up new domestic drilling and suggestions that this could include frontier areas in Alaska, he has a long-term plan for diversifying energy sources, improving energy efficiency and transitioning to a cleaner, more sustainable future.

“This stands in stark contrast to the members of Congress who are solely focused on helping their Big Oil buddies continue to make obscene profits while most Americans struggle to pay rapidly rising gas prices.

Thankfully President Obama is confronting our addiction to oil. This stands in stark contrast to the members of Congress who are solely focused on helping their Big Oil buddies continue to make obscene profits while most Americans struggle to pay rapidly rising gas prices.

“The Obama administration is taking some right and necessary steps to reduce our long-term dependence on foreign oil. But a key element that was missing from today’s speech was a reaffirmed commitment to accelerating the development of environmentally-responsible renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal today. In the long term, these are the only truly secure and reliable sources of energy we have.

Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen

“Responsible, sustainable and secure energy development can only be achieved if we’re smart from the start. With the right policies in place, we can improve transportation, reduce prices at the pump, and still power our homes and cities. We can do so without sacrificing clean air, drinking water, wildlife, and the health of our planet and its people. We need to not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but also transition away from dirty, polluting fuels altogether. It is the only responsible thing to do.”

More Details

• President Obama outlined federal efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil and diversify energy sources, including renewable energy and efficiency in a speech today
• The speech comes as a flurry of measures are being introduced in Congress this week to ramp up domestic drilling – including new areas in the Gulf of Mexico, Arctic Ocean, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and sensitive Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters
• Congressional proposals are also seeking arbitrary exemptions for offshore drilling that would force the Interior Department to act on all new applications for wells – including those like the Deepwater Horizon – within an unrealistic 30-day deadline, which would likely result in hasty, insufficient reviews
• Defenders of Wildlife calls on the Obama administration and Congress to focus less on dirty, fossil fuel production and more on safe, renewable energy development

Read up on the President’s proposal.

Learn more about Defenders’ work to protect American coasts from offshore drilling disasters.

Defenders envisions a clean energy future that’s smart from the start. Learn more>>