The Fish and Wildlife Service has caused quite a buzz with its proposal to lock in certain protections for the nation’s sprawling and increasingly climate-sensitive refuge system.
With two weeks left in a public comment period, the federal agency has already fielded more than 17,000 wildly diverse written responses. The outpouring is likely to grow much larger before the March 4 comment deadline expires, as the public sorts through the FWS’s proposal for protecting what it calls the refuge system’s “biological integrity, diversity and environmental health.”
FWS’s proposal
Some hear that phrase and see red.
“This new policy is a grave misstep,” declared Rep. Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, adding that “this bureaucratic red tape will only serve to restrict effective habitat management and limit hunting opportunities and public access.”
