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Monday morning notes

January 05, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Welcome back and Happy New Year.  Here are a few quick ESA-related items of note: The Baltimore Sun previews the Obama's administration response to recent Bush administration regulations. The Winston-Salem Journal previews incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. At the PropertyProf Blog, Professor Barros notes the posting of an article b ...

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Kempthorne's final speech

January 06, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Yesterday, Dirk Kempthorne gave his "last formal speech" as Interior Secretary. The AP has a report on the speech, available here. … ...

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Boston Globe : "Bush's one last blow to the environment"

January 06, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

The Boston Globe's Derrick Z. Jackson laments all the bad things President Bush has done to the environment.  In particular, he was not happy with the Interior's actions on the polar bear: In a further attack on the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proudly announced he would protect polar bears, but decoupled ...

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Service denies listing petition for 270 species

January 07, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

The petition was submitted by Wild Earth Guardians.  The principal reason for the denial appears to be lack of information on the quantity or quality of threats facing most of the petitioned species. … ...

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op-ed on delta smelt biological opinion

January 09, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Yesterday PLF attorney Brandon Middleton and former Interior assistant secretary Craig Manson had this op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. The op-ed points out that "there is little science to support the notion that pumping restrictions will solve the problem of the smelt's decline" and argues that "it makes no sense to make t ...

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recent Section 7 reg analyses

January 09, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

An op-ed from CBD's Noah Greenwald appeared in Wednesday's Denver Post, while the UCLA Daily Bruin had a unique story on the regs by Jennifer Carcamo — unique in that it is one of the few articles we've seen that at least made an honest attempt to get both sides of this story, rather than serve only … ...

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Mark Your Calendars!

January 13, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

PLF will have its Spring Dinner at The Pacific Club in lovely Newport Beach, California, on Saturday, March 21, 2009.  The program will feature the Coastal Land Rights Project, with attorneys Paul Beard and Damien Schiff discussing PLF's fight against the California Coastal Commission's abuse of property owners. For tickets and ...

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tri-state water rights litigation update

January 13, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied Georgia's petition for writ of certiorari in Georgia v. Florida. This case concerns an agreement between Georgia and the Army Corps of Engineers regarding Georgia's future water supply from Lake Lanier, a man-made lake north of Georgia. Last February, the D.C. Circuit invalidated the agreement, essent ...

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Black Abalone Listed

January 14, 2009 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

The National Marine Fisheries Service yesterday announced that the black abalone has been listed as endangered.  The principal threat to the abalone is a bacterial infection called withering syndrome, which affects the abalone's ability to take in food and which originated in the Channel Islands of California.  Commenting on the lis ...