You are the walrus? Watch out!
Fair warning: Strange things happen during the closing months of an administration.
With Congress out of town and much of the country's attention focused on the presidential race, administrations, whether run by Democrats or Republicans, have used the approaching moment when the lights go out to hurry last-minute policy changes through the federal bureaucracy.
It's happening now.
Bottom line: It's not a good time to look to President Bush to protect you from global warming if you are the walrus -- specifically, the Pacific walrus.
The president's top environment aides -- from the Interior Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency -- are blocking federal review of the possible impact of greenhouse gases on wildlife or their habitat.
They are doing so, according to the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, by ruling that "since no single source of greenhouse gases will by itself cause detectable climate change," there will be no official review of the gases' impact.
Bad news for endangered species -- like the pictured gang of Pacific walrus in Alaska -- threatened by global warming.
The final months of any administration are also a good time to keep an eye on that driest of Washington publications: the Federal Register.
That's where new regulations show up. It's an often nearly opaque window on rules that have a way of establishing new education, health, or, in another case, environmental, policy without giving Congress a say.
Quietly revealing just such a change with a little-noticed press release, the Bureau of Land Management announced last week that it was sending to the Federal Register notice of a proposed rule reversal:
Until now, two congressional committees have been able to set aside designated public land and keep it free from mining and oil and gas exploration.
But the Interior Department agency said it was planning to rescind the rule.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
