Re-tightening of rules pitched to protect endangered species
BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration proposed bringing back rules to protect imperiled plants and animals on Wednesday as officials moved to reverse changes under former President Donald Trump that weakened the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened.
The blanket protections regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law that were encouraged by industry, even as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.
Officials also would no longer consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. And the rules make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species’ survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.
That could help with the recovery of imperiled fish and freshwater mussels in the Southeast, where the aquatic animals in many cases are absent from portions of their historical range, said Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Director Gary Frazer.
Frazer said Wednesday’s proposal would restore “baseline” protections so species don’t get pushed further toward extinction.
“We have the opportunity to try to improve the status of species before they get to the brink,” he said.
Details on the proposed rules, which could take a year to finalize, were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of their public release.
They’ll face strong pushback from Republican lawmakers, who say President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration has hampered oil, gas and coal development, and favors conservation over development.
“These proposed rules take us in the wrong direction and are entirely unnecessary given the proven track record of success from private conservationists and state and local land managers,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas.
Industry groups have long viewed the 1973 Endangered Species Act as an impediment.
Under Trump they successfully lobbied to weaken the law’s regulations as part of a broad dismantling of environmental safeguards. Trump officials rolled back endangered species rules and protections for the northern spotted owl, gray wolves and other species.
The spotted owl decision was reversed in 2021 after officials said Trump’s political appointees used faulty science to justify opening millions of acres of West Coast forest to potential logging.
Protections for wolves across most of the U.S. were restored by a federal court last year and the Biden administration has said it will decide by next February if they should remain in place.
Many of the changes under Trump were finalized during his last weeks in office.
Since then, officials imposed less restrictive protections for more than a dozen animals and plants compared to what they would have received, said Jonathan Wood with the Property and Environment Research Center, a free-market policy group based in Bozeman, Mont.
Wood said the Biden proposal could hurt state and private landowner efforts to recover species, by imposing more punitive regulations that undermine voluntary conservation incentives.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in a statement that the changes “reaffirm our commitment to conserving America’s wildlife and ensuring the Endangered Species Act works for both species and people.”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit said the rules would ensure the species law remains effective as climate change alters habitats around the globe, and plants and animals become extinct.