President Bush's Wetlands Initiative On Track

Coastal America news release, 4/21/05.

On the first anniversary of the President's wetlands initiative, the Bush Administration today released "Conserving America's Wetlands: Implementing the President's Goal." The new report highlights first-year progress pursuant to the President's goal of restoring, improving, and protecting the quality and quantity of three million acres of wetlands by 2009.

The President's 5-year goal calls for restoring at least one million acres of additional wetlands; improving the condition of at least one million acres of existing degraded wetlands; and extending protection to at least one million additional acres of imperiled wetlands. The President also committed federal agencies to make better use of the array of federal programs that can contribute to the wetland goal. According to the report, specific achievements between Earth Day 2004 and Earth Day 2005 include 328,000 acres restored or created; 154,000 acres improved; and 350,000 acres protected.

The report also includes a description of the key federal programs contributing to the goal and their planned accomplishments for FY 2006. The President's 2006 budget requests continued funding for the programs to support an additional 1.6 million acres to be restored or created, improved, and protected by September 30, 2006. Download the report and Executive Summary at http://www.coastalamerica.gov

The National Wildlife Federation has released a rebuttal fact sheet, "Still Nowhere Near No-Net-Loss" available online at http://www.nwf.org/nwfwebadmin/binaryVault/STILL.doc


http://www.aswm.org/wbn/current.htm#2

So ...

Just how much money was budgeted for this work?

Rather than asking what has been budgeted for this effort, we should be asking how much this is going to costs us. As always, new initiatives lead to more process. And as we often witness, the most successful bureaucracies generate policies, which generate controversies, which lead to more lawsuits, which lead to more process, which increase the billable hours for lawyers, environmental consultants and other land development experts, but not better decisions.

Ed said:

"As always, new initiatives lead to more process."

Dear Ed,

It appears that the pace of new federal wetlands regulatory initiatives has slowed down since the SWANCC decision in 2001.

President Bush's wetlands initiatives are in fact well established federal conservation programs that are getting fresh attention.

Perhaps our next President will initiate regulatory action to clarify and redefine the boundaries of federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction, in light of the SWANCC decision.