The Biden administration restored rules to protect endangered plants and animals on Thursday (Mar. 28) after it was rolled back under former President Donald Trump in 2019.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service would reinstate the 1973 Endangered Species Act, a decades-old regulation mandating blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. This meant that officials would not have to create specific, time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections were pending.
The Associated Press obtained details on the rules that were to be reinstated.
Wildlife advocates perceived the White House's move as incomplete as they said several potentially harmful changes under Trump were left untouched.
Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former Fish and Wildlife Service director and now president at Defenders of Wildlife, characterized Thursday's announcement as a "marginal win" that restored essential protections for wildlife but left in place some of the changes made in 2019 under Trump. The environmental group added that the retained provisions would open the door to destroying habitat critical for some species to survive.
On the other hand, Republicans criticized the restoration of the regulations, saying that the law was being wielded too broadly and to the detriment of economic growth.
"We know the Endangered Species Act is an outdated piece of legislation that has repeatedly failed its primary goal of recovering listed species, yet Biden is now undoing crucial reforms and issuing new regulations that will not benefit listed species," House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) said.
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Another rule from the wildlife service and the National Marine Fisheries Service announced on Thursday said that officials would not consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants needed protection. This would make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species' survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.
Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in a statement that the rule changes underscored the agency's commitment to using the best available science to halt population declines as "climate change, degraded and fragmented habitat, invasive species, and wildlife disease" threaten many species.
Many energy companies, ranchers, developers, and representatives of other industries have long viewed the 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.
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