Yesterday I wrote about the concerns of the legal team that successfully won a lawsuit that upheld Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Those concerns were grounded in efforts by Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson and Montana’s senators Baucus and Tester, to fudge a rider through Congress on a budget bill that would appear to delist gray wolves in Idaho and Montana, leaving the rest of the nation to go it on their own.
I ended that piece by asking:
Now the question becomes, what did the USFWS know behind the scenes, before they decided to not appeal the Johnson ruling? My guess is this was all part of the plan. If Simpson, Tester and Baucus felt confident in their slime-ball politicking to lie, cheat and steal their way into a rottenly deceptive bill, they convinced the USFWS to go ahead and drop their appeal and they would get a better return on their investment this way.
I was mostly right. I wasn’t aware the environmentalists were this closely in on the deal. It was announced yesterday that some of the plaintiffs embroiled in wolf litigation had reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to remove wolves from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This agreement is a fraud, squarely founded in deception, lies and corruption, just what we would expect from the Obama Administration.
Later I will get into the details of the “compromise” but the tell-tale indicator of this artifice is that the compromise mirrors the Simpson/Tester/Baucus bill the three amigos are attempting to ram through Congress. The compromise asks that Judge Donald Molloy agree to it and allow for a reinstatement of the 2009 Final Rule of delisting wolves in Idaho and Wyoming. Recall that Molloy rejected that Rule on the grounds that you cannot delist an endangered species based on state lines. For Molloy to agree to this compromise, would be an exercise in the biggest mockery of the courts and that of any judge alive.
In addition to excluding Wyoming from the delisting compromise, it also excludes those portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah which were originally part of the declared Northern Rocky Mountain Distinct Population Segment of gray wolves. This compromise further is asking Judge Molloy to agree to increase delisting according to state lines.
As was pointed out yesterday in my article, Harriet Hageman, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Wyoming wolf management case, worried that passage of the Simpson/Tester/Baucus bill would erase the victory in court that declared the Wyoming wolf plan legitimate. As Hagemen pointed out the wording of the Simpson bill would accomplish that task and so would this compromise. The intent is the same. In addition, this compromise states that after delisting wolves in Idaho and Montana, the Feds would negotiate with Wyoming to come up with an acceptable wolf management plan. Hello! Feds! Wyoming already has one!
It would then appear to me that Simpson, Tester and Baucus, supported by the wolf environmentalists, knew their wolf bill was in trouble and so ran to the USFWS to quickly craft a compromise that would mirror the Simpson bill. This is the reason the USFWS decided to announce their plans NOT to challenge the court ruling. It would also indicate all these groups are quite nervous about the prospects of the passage of bills, HB 509 and S 249 – bills that would exempt wolves from consideration of the ESA.
Now the even bigger question becomes, is Judge Molloy in on this fraud as well? He has always claimed that he had no other choice in his rulings but to follow what was written in the ESA, even though he made some of it up. What say ye, Judge Donald Molloy?
Tom Remington
