The Washington Post reports the Bush administration is finalizing changes to the Endangered Species Act that would ensure that federal agencies would not have to take global warming into account when assessing risks to imperiled plants and animals. The new regulations would eliminate a longstanding provision of the Endangered Species Act that requires an independent scientific review of any federal project that could affect a protected species. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino dismissed the importance of the Endangered Species Act.

Dana Perino: “I know conceptually what we support, and I know that the Endangered Species Act is a tangled web that doesn’t actually help support any species, including our own.”