The United States has once again declared itself to
be above international law — this time, a law aimed at
protecting birds.
Last April, a federal judge ordered all
branches of the military to comply with the 1918 Migratory Bird
Treaty Act, a law that protects 850 species of birds through
agreements with Mexico, Canada, Russia and Japan. One month
earlier, the judge had ruled in favor of environmental groups that
sued to stop the Navy from practicing bombing exercises on a
Pacific island home to more than a dozen species of migratory
birds.
But instead of obeying the judge’s ruling,
the military took its case to Congress. And, in mid-November,
Congress exempted the U.S. armed forces from the Bird Treaty Act.
The new law is “good for the U.S. government
— and for birds in the long run,” says Paul Schmidt,
acting assistant director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s
Migratory Birds and State Programs. According to Schmidt, Congress
has required the Department of Defense to develop a plan to
“identify, minimize and mitigate” its impacts on the
birds.
Environmental groups, which were not allowed to
comment before Congress, worry this law will not be the last to
fall by the wayside. “(The military) will be back in Congress
(this) session, saying, ‘Unless you exempt us from
environmental laws, national security will be compromised,’
” says Paul Achitoff, an attorney with Earthjustice.
“But (the law is) almost 90 years old and we’ve managed
to defend ourselves militarily through a number of wars without
changing (it).”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline 84-year-old bird law no match for the military.
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