Conservation Group Plans Landmark Lawsuit

The Center for Biological Diversity's planned lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior would be the largest legal action ever taken under the Endangered Species Act, according to news from the environmental group.

The center this week filed a formal notice of intent to sue the federal agency for interfering with the endangered species status of 55 plants and animals in 28 states. The group claims that the Department of the Interior illegally removed the Sacramento splittail, a large bottom-foraging fish found in California, from the endangered species list, and refused to designate as endangered three animals -- the Mexican garter snake; the Arctic fluvial grayling, a freshwater fish; and the Tabernaemontana Rotensis, a perennial shrub or tree found on Guam and Rota.

The planned lawsuit also charges the federal agency with wrongly stripping protection from 8.7 million acres of habitat across the U.S. critical to the survival of 44 plant and animal species, and for proposing to remove or downgrade protection for seven other animals, including the Florida manatee, the Antillean manatee, the Caribbean brown pelican, the Eastern pelican, the California least tern, the West Virginia northern flying squirrel and the marbled murrelet, a small seabird.

"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."