Current admin in action: ignoring rules to get what it wants

"Laws ensuring clean water for us and our children -- dismissed. Laws protecting wildlife, land, rivers, streams and places of cultural significance -- just a bother to the Bush administration. Laws giving American citizens a voice in the process -- gone. Clearly this is out of control.

It is this kind of absolute disregard for the well-being and concerns of border communities and the welfare of our wildlife and untamed borderlands that has forced Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club to take a stand and say 'No more!'

Just a few weeks ago we filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to fight the unconstitutional authority the Bush administration has seized to waive any and all laws it views as inconvenient in its rush to build an unpopular, ineffective border wall. Today's egregious abuse of power is more proof that this cannot be allowed to continue."

--Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, in response to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's announcement today that he is imposing a blanket waiver of environmental and land management laws along 470 miles of the U.S. and Mexico border

Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of this controversial waiver as a "flagrant violation of the separation of powers principle that frames the U.S. Constitution."