Teabag by teabag, the anti-environment faction in the House of Representatives has filled its federal government spending bill with amendments that will cripple protections for our water, air, natural resources, wildlife and public health. 

Not since the darkest days of the Bush administration have we seen such an onslaught on the environment—and the hits are still coming. By mid-day today (Tues., Feb. 15), the list has grown to include attacks on a number of endangered species, including wolves and salmon, and on the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to keep lethal pollutants out of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Some amendments are outright handouts to our nation’s worst polluters.

The spending bill will fund the government so that it can continue operating after March 4, but first the Senate must pass the bill. Today, Pres. Barack Obama warned that he would veto the bill as constructed.

The following is a list of the most harmful provisions and amendments proposed so far:

This week, following a challenge from California water districts, the state and corporate agribusiness, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to revise its plan to protect the delta smelt, a fish that makes its home in the brackish waters of the San Francisco Bay Delta. Earthjustice attorneys defended a biological opinion from USFWS that implemented protections for the smelt, and while the judge agreed with the majority of the biological opinion, he asked for revisions to specific sections.

The smelt, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, has been at the center of an ongoing debate about the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystem. Over the past decade, as state and federal water projects pumped huge volumes of water from the delta, the fish’s numbers have significantly decreased. The smelt now rests at the brink of extinction and its drastic decline is cause for concern. Considered a key ecosystem indicator species, the fate of the smelt is closely tied to that of salmon. We talked with Earthjustice attorney George Torgun to get the latest on the fate of the smelt and the Bay-Delta ecosystem.

Reporters speak of a story having legs, meaning that it is likely to continue over an extended period. Spotted owls have legs.

The story began in the late '80s, when it became evident that out-of-control logging in ancient forests in the Northwest was about to extinguish the owls. Earthjustice sued, and managed to achieve Endangered Species Act protection for the owls.

End of story? Not quite.
 

It's hard to imagine—as we watch birds, turtles, dolphins and other animals struggle and die in the oil from BP's blown-out well—that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported just three years ago that drilling in the Gulf of Mexico posed little risk to animal life.

A memo to that effect, unveiled by the New York Times and reported by AP, was sent by the agency to the Minerals Management Service as part of its assessment of various Gulf drilling operations, including the Deepwater Horizon operation that blew out April 20. Oil from the well continues gushing at an estimated 2.4 million gallons a day.

We long have known that the MMS was too friendly with the oil industry—a fact that came to public light when the BP spill occurred and led to federal investigations and a shakeup of the agency. But, it is especially troubling to find how willing the FWS was to endorse MMS's flawed oversight. The FWS is, after all, the one agency whose mission is to protect our endangered and threatened wildlife.