The Trump Admin wants to change the way the Endangered Species Act is enforced. They want to make delisting species easier. The article by The Hill gives the rationale behind this move but conservationists and Democratic legislators say it’s goal is to help industry and land owners.
The Trump administration is proposing significant changes to the way it enforces the Endangered Species Act (ESA), saying they are a needed modernization of decades-old regulations, but wildlife groups say the changes will put endangered animals and plants at risk.
The proposal would make it easier to delist an endangered species and would withdraw a policy that offered the same protections for threatened species as for endangered species unless otherwise specified.
It would streamline interagency consultations and make it more difficult to protect habitat near land where endangered species live.
The proposed rules also include an interpretation that a species considered endangered would be protected for a “foreseeable future” that extends “only as far” as it can be reasonably determined that “both the future threats and the species’ responses to those threats are probable.”
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Environmentalists and animal conservationists pushed back on the package of changes to the ESA, saying the proposed efforts would ultimately weaken animal protections and benefits industry.
“This proposal turns the extinction-prevention tool of the Endangered Species Act into a rubber stamp for powerful corporate interests,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Allowing the federal government to turn a blind eye to climate change will be a death sentence for polar bears and hundreds of other animals and plants.”
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the proposed rule a favor to industry.
thehill.com/...