Environmental reporter Daniel Jack-Chasan weighs in at Crosscut:

The last-minute budget deal that Democrats and Republicans worked out last Friday night may be, as President Obama said, "historic" for more reasons than one. Language in the legislation that may keep the federal government afloat "basically overturns the moral imperative that drove the passage of the Endangered Species Act," says Doug Honnold, managing attorney of Earthjustice's Northern Rockies office.

The language will "delist" wolves in Montana, Idaho, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and Utah — and will make that delisting unreviewable by the courts. Can Congress really do that? Yes, it can.

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