Manatees vs. Obama

The gentle sea cow is the latest draftee in the nation’s ongoing “war on coal.”

Congressional Republicans have rushed to the manatee’s defense in an effort to slow new carbon emissions regulations, while the Obama administration is rejecting claims its forthcoming rules on coal-fired power plants will pose a direct threat to the Florida habitat of the endangered bulbous marine mammals.

Republicans say the Environmental Protection Agency erred by not consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service in designing its so-called Clean Power Plan because the proposal almost surely will force the closure of coal-fired power plants and subsequently reduce the warm water Florida’s manatees need to survive during cold winter months. Warm-water discharge from the plant becomes home to hundreds of manatees for a roughly six-month stretch each winter.

Federal law requires that the Fish and Wildlife Service be consulted on any regulation that could affect an endangered species, but administration officials admitted last week there has been no such consultation on the EPA’s carbon rules.

Warm-water discharge from Florida’s Big Bend Power Station, a coal-fired plant on Tampa Bay, attracts so many West Indian manatees to the waters beside the plant that owner TECO Energy, parent company of Tampa Electric, in 1986 opened a “Manatee Viewing Center,” complete with observation platforms and a self-guided nature walk, for tourists to observe the animals. Force the plant out of business, critics warn, and the manatees will be forced to find new waters to graze in.

More