In his two years on the job of protecting America's wildlife and wildlands, Interior Secretary Kempthorne hasn't listed a single new species under the Endangered Species Act - even though federal biologists warn that at least 280 native species could disappear forever without such protections.
In fact, under Secretary Kempthorne, the Department of the Interior has:
- repeatedly delayed protections for polar bears - which could disappear from America in 50 years if we continue to do nothing to save them,
- removed vital federal protections for gray wolves in Greater Yellowstone,
- and denied critical protections for jaguars, wolverines, and other imperiled wildlife.
It is Congress's job to hold the Secretary accountable when he fails to do his job. Please send a message now to urge your U.S. Representative to
call for Congressional hearings on Secretary Kempthorne's failure to protect America's wildlife.Dear Representative,
I urge you to support Congressional hearings on the Secretary of Interior's abysmal track record on protecting threatened and endangered species.
Since being appointed almost two years ago, Secretary Kempthorne hasn't listed a single new species under the Endangered Species Act -- even though federal biologists concede that at least 280 native species could disappear forever without such protections.
Without federal protections, species like the American bald eagle, gray wolf and grizzly bear might not still be around. Yet Secretary Kempthorne continues to delay action and deny protections that may be vital to saving many of our native wildlife species.
Under Secretary Kempthorne, the U.S. Interior Department continues to delay protections for polar bears. Instead, he approved a lease sale for harmful drilling in the Chukchi Sea vital habitat for one of just two polar bear populations in America.
Despite the presence of jaguars in the United States and the existence of large swaths of prime jaguar habitat, Kempthorne's department also refused to create a recovery plan for these endangered cats, claiming that jaguars are a "foreign" species.
But under this flawed argument, the U.S. would have had no obligation to protect bald eagles, wolves, grizzlies or other native species so long as they existed somewhere outside the lower 48 states!
And that's not all. Kempthorne's Interior Department has denied vital protections for other imperiled species, including wolverines, red knots and North Atlantic right whales.
I urge you support hearings to hold Secretary Kempthorne responsible for his awful performance on protecting these and other species. Once these species are gone we can't get them back.
Thank you for considering my comments.
