By Howard Fischer, The Arizona Daily Star
The nation’s top security official may use his power to unilaterally trump a federal court order halting construction of a fence on a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is weighing whether to invoke a section of federal law that allows him to exempt border construction projects from any law, his press aide, Russ Knocke, told Capitol Media Services. That includes requirements for studies on environmental impacts of federally funded projects.
The move would not be unprecedented: Chertoff used the power at least twice since it was granted.
In 2005 he decided to build fencing near San Diego without conducting environmental studies. And in January he issued a waiver from all laws for a project along the edge of the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Southwestern Arizona.
The possibility of Chertoff again exempting his agency from environmental laws comes days after a federal judge in Washington stopped construction of a nearly two-mile stretch of fence at the foot of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area southeast of Tucson. The conservation area, designated by Congress in 1988, is described on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Web site as ecologically “one of the most important riparian areas in the United States.”
(Original Article)