President B. H. Obama went to the Department of Interior on Tuesday and told the gathered civil servants that the previous occupant was wrong to issue a rule change abrogating the consultation requirement for government projects impacting protected species. {1/21/09, 43 Slips One Pass} On the 160th anniversary of the Interior Department he told the cheering audience that restoring the consultation rule "would restore the scientific process to its rightful place at the heart of the Endangered Species Act". While not technically not overruling the change, Mr. Obama's memorandum instructs agencies to use the consultation process in every case, until formal rule making can begin. The same discredited thinking was espoused by the US Chamber of Commerce in response to the reversal which called the rule intended to force agencies to consider environmental impacts of their development projects, "added red tape".[photo: LA Times]