For the 717th time since he captured the United States presidency, George W. Bush has decided he is the “decider” in trying to override the law.

The Bush White House is trying to overrule a federal court’s decision limiting the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises off the East and West coasts by exempting the service from complying with two major environmental laws, the Coastal Zone Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Environmentalists sued to limit the use of loud, mid-frequency sonar, which can harm whales and other marine mammals. They now say the Bush exemptions would be unprecedented and lead to a larger legal battle over the extent to which the military has to follow environmental laws, a battle I’ve been in on myself in the past back in the early 1990s when the Navy wanted to locate a high powered, low frequency nuclear pulse simulator called the EMPRESS II in the Gulf of Mexico to test ships’ hardening against atmospheric nuclear blasts.

Joel Reynolds, the attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said the organization, which obtained the injunction against the Navy, would contest the White House orders in court.

“The president’s action is an attack on the rule of law,” Reynolds said. “By exempting the Navy from basic safeguards under both federal and state law, the President is flouting the will of Congress, the decision of the California Coastal Commission, and a ruling by the federal court.”

In a court filing Tuesday, government attorneys said President Bush had determined that allowing the use of mid-frequency sonar in ongoing exercises off southern California was “essential to national security” and of “paramount interest to the United States.”

Federal District Court Judge Marie Florence-Marie Cooper ruled earlier this month in Los Angeles that the Navy’s plan to limit harm to whales - especially deep-diving beaked whales that have at times stranded and died following Navy sonar exercises - were “grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure.” A federal appeals court had previously ruled as well that the Navy plan was inadequate, and sent the case back to Cooper to set new guidelines for the exercise, according to a Washington Post analysis.

In her ruling, she banned sonar use within 12 nautical miles of the coast and required numerous procedures to cut off sonar use when marine mammals are spotted. Following the ruling, the Navy indicated that the guidelines would render the exercise useless, despite the judge’s opposite conclusion.

The NRDC said the situation does not constitute an emergency, since the Navy is allowed to continue sonar training under Cooper’s ruling.

Navy officials have argued that they must step up sonar training because a new generation of “quiet” submarines has made it increasingly difficult to detect underwater intruders. The Navy says more than 40 nations now have relatively inexpensive diesel-powered submarines, which cannot be detected with passive sonar and can only be located with sonar that emits the loud blasts of sound.

The Navy trains sailors in sonar use on an underwater range off southern California and wants to build another range off the Carolinas.

White House Fights Ruling Limiting Navy’s Use of Sonar

Birders and other environmentalists feared that the appointments of John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court would move the Court to the right on issues concerning clean water, clean air, wetland preservation, and protections for endangered birds and animals, and their worst nightmares have come true, according to the latest Birder’s United news update.

In 2006, both Alito and Roberts voted to weaken federal regulations of wetlands. In June 2007 the two new justices were part of the majority in the case National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, which ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have to consider endangered species before handing over Clean Water Act regulatory authority to states that request it.

The Environmental Protection Agency had given regulatory authority to the state of Arizona to approve building permits under the Clean Water Act. The legislation gives the EPA the authority to hand regulatory oversight to a state if the state meets nine specific criteria. But the protection of endangered species is not one of those nine provisions.

Defenders of Wildlife filed suit claiming that the state should not be granted regulatory authority because the state does not consider the impact of housing development on endangered species, including the pygmy owl. The Ninth Circuit Court agreed with Defenders of Wildlife saying endangered species were not given adequate protections under the EPA guidelines.

But in a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court decision. Writing for the majority Justice Alito noted that the Clean Water Act states that the EPA “must” give states control if they requested it and complied with the nine provisions. This one word “must,” according to the majority opinion, gave the Court no leeway to decide in favor of Defenders of Wildlife.

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Birders Waiting for the Democrats

Several months ago Birders United noted that many of the leading candidates who hope to be the standard-bearer for the Democratic Party in 2008 had been slow to put the environment at the top of their agendas. We noted at the time that most of the major Democratic candidates appeared to be sidestepping the issue. When environmental issues were mentioned in their campaign materials it was usually related to lessening our dependence on foreign oil in order to put the brakes on global warming or to decrease our dealings in the Middle East.

Nothing has changed. Traditional “green” policies of conservation, expanding open space, protecting endangered species, and making sure we have clean air and water are still not at the top of the Democratic candidates’ agendas. A survey of the major Democratic candidates’ Web sites shows that not one lists the environment as one of their top concerns.

The fact that environmental issues are not deemed important by the major Democratic candidates is extremely disappointing, especially after the very serious damage that has been done to bird habitats during the six and a half years of the Bush presidency.

Before the wires move a story on it, you can watch President George W. Bush on CNN or C-SPAN in a rare Rose Garden press conference say “the economy is on the fast track” and fake concern for renewable energy sources - as he refuses to get the troops out of Iraq and saber rattles about the coming war with Iran.

While the local newspapers and TV news stations continue to report that the economy is great and unemployment is at record low numbers, we suspect an investigation of the numbers would reveal that they are as cooked as Enron’s and HealthSouth’s books.

As for renewable energy sources, Bush’s energy plan focuses solely on opening up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling and some incentives for ethanol and research into hydrogen.

Besides, his base could care less about the environment - they are just interested in keeping the gas cheap for their SUVs so they can drive everywhere they go.

In September 2003, President Bush nominated William J. Haynes II to a key judicial seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a Harvard-trained lawyer for the Department of Defense, Haynes argued that the bombing of an island in the Marianas, an important haven for many rare species of birds, would actually be beneficial for bird watchers. Haynes and his team of Defense Department attorneys contended that the bombing would disperse the birds to other islands so many more people would be able to see the rare species. If you are one of the 15 million or more Americans who have an interest in protecting the habitat of birds, you might want to know about Birders United.

In a classic example of how crass the Bush administration can be when it comes to the natural environment and pandering to the public to try and make a come back in the polls, just hours after some of us celebrated the 36th anniversary of Earth Day, President George W. Bush went for a bike ride in a restricted mountainous area of California where the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep live, according to The (Palm Springs) Desert Sun.

It was uncertain Sunday night if White House organizers accompanying President Bush knew about the voluntary avoidance program, according to the paper - or whether they cared, according to us.

The wires are now reporting Bush’s remarks this morning in which he is supposedly calling for an investigation into gas price gouging. Does anyone actually believe there is any truth at all to this story? Bush lost any credibility on this issue long ago. It would be nice to see some skepticism of his sincerity reported as part of this story. Guess you have to turn to the blogs for that, eh?

Bush Takes Aim at Gasoline Prices

Really? This should be interesting. How many of the people can you fool some of the time again?