Why don't we just cancel Earth Day?

Item 1:  That late night budget “compromise” cut $1.6 billion from the E.P.A.’s current level of spending.  Regulation of pollution from mining and from power generating plants will be affected, much to the delight of the Republican House members.

Item 2:  For the first time since the Endangered Species Act was passed, Congress has decided, on the basis of politics rather than science, to declare a species no longer endangered.  According to Congress, Rocky Mountain wolves can be removed from the list.  Congress then attached a rider that said courts couldn’t review this law.  (Yes, Congress has that right--the Constitution says that Congress can determine judicial jurisdiction.)

Item 3:  The budget “compromise” cut the entire funding for the program to buy lands for wilderness preservation.

Item 4:   The Pennsylvania Game Commission, an agency charged with the responsibility “for managing all of Pennsylvania’s wild birds and mammals,”  [Penna. Game Commission website] yesterday decided, by a unanimous vote, that porcupines can be killed between September 1 and March 31.  You can shoot up to SIX a day. One commissioner said that this ruling could benefit the species.  

The Commission did this with no studies, no data.  Porcupines are supposedly destructive to trees and even aluminum siding, but there have been only a few reports of damage.  If porcupines are a problems in certain areas, and I doubt they are, why not  divide the state into “management areas” like the Commission does for deer?  If a management area has no problem with porcupines, you would not be allowed to kill them.  In southeast Pennsylvania, for example, there are no porcupines.  Under the current regulations, however, if one did show up, you could kill it with no sanction.

To defend porcupines, write to the Pennsylvania Game Commission and protest this action.  Send your letter to Pennsylvania Game Commission at 2001 Elmerton Ave., Harrisburg, PA 17110-9797.