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Endangered US animal and plant species are in danger of losing vital legal protection designed to prevent them from extinction.

The outgoing Bush administration is proposing to rush through legislation that will remove the right of government experts to ensure that dams, highways and other big infrastructure projects don’t pose an unacceptable threat to fragile plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Crucially, the regulations must be approved by Friday if they are to come into effect before President-elect Obama’s swearing-in ceremony on January 20th.

Under the plan, the existing role of federal wildlife scientists in approving key projects likely to affect endangered species cases will be removed. Instead, the federal agency in charge of building, authorising or funding a project will be given sole responsibility for deciding the likely harm it might cause.

The move is the latest in a string of ‘midnight regulations‘ that the incumbent administration is seeking to push through in the final days of the Bush administration. In a further sign of the administration’s stubborn refusal to deviate from from its entrenched views, a November 12 version of the final rules has changed little from the original proposal, despite the more than 250,000 comments received since it was first proposed in August.

Image credit – chascar via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license