WC to Gov. Parnell: Beluga Whales? Told You So.
WC’s readers will recall that back in June 2011, WC was critical – well, vitriolic, really – of Governor Parnell’s decision to litigate the endangered species classification of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whales. Because Parnell’s other bad decisions had removed Alaskan officials from the group that develops the recovery plan, Alaska had no seat at the table that would affect use of Cook Inlet for decades. All the eggs were in the litigation basket, and the basket was ridiculously flimsy.
Today the State’s basket collapsed and its eggs all broke: Chief U.S. District Judge Lambreth threw out the State’s case. It wasn’t even close. No, WC will go further: there was never any doubt. The law under the Endangered Species Act is extremely well-developed and settled. Let WC translate that for non-lawyers: the issues the State is trying to raise have been raised dozens of times before and each and every time the party challenging the endangered species classification has lost.
Predictably, the Comments on the Anchorage Daily News article on the subject blow a lot of smoke but precious little light. They attack the scientists, blames environmentalists and the rail against the federal government. Curiously, no one blames Anchorage’s untreated sewage, the incredible amounts of oil and drilling sludge from oil and gas wells in the Inlet or Anchorage port expansion and dredging. It’s always easier to blame someone else, but perhaps not very honest.
Neither the Governor nor the Attorney General have found time yet to respond to the court’s slap-down of their lame lawsuit. WC hopes that the State won’t waste still more money by appealing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Frankly, the money would be better spent burning it on a street corner, where it might provide a little warmth on a cold winter night, and provide a little illumination into the Governor’s strategic thinking.
Because now the State’s options are pretty pathetic and narrowed to one choice. Withdraw the silly gag order, making State biologists eligible for the Recovery Team so the State’s voice could be heard going forward. Of course, that would involve the Governor’s very publicly swallowing a massive amount of Common Raven. Crow just wouldn’t do. His pride and dignity would suffer. But it’s orders of magnitude more likely to be helpful than continuing the silly, stupid lawsuit.
In the meantime, perhaps the Governor can tell us how much money has been squandered in legal fees so far?
I was as thrilled to read the judge’s words as I was p1ssed off when I had first read that the biologists had to leave the recovery team due to the silly, using a nicer word that first comes to mind, gag policy.
I doubt this Gov will be either professional, mature, smart, etc (pick any one of these words or others in the same vain) to lift the gag order for the reason you pointed out. It is such a shame that we continue to vote people into this office that have more issues with their egos and ability to understand than most teenagers!
ugavic
November 22, 2011 at 7:32 pm