Agencies reverse Trump limits on endangered habitat protection
TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. >> The Biden administration Thursday withdrew a rule adopted under former President Donald Trump that limited which lands and waters could be designated as places where imperiled animals and plants could receive federal protection.
A definition of “habitat” published in December 2020, shortly before Trump left office, restricted areas the government could identify as critical for particular wildlife. Environmental advocates said the move would put more species on a path toward extinction while supporters said it would secure private property rights.
In rescinding the rule, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service said it could hamper their mission to make sciencebased critical habitat decisions.
“The growing extinction crisis highlights the importance of the Endangered Species Act and efforts to conserve species before declines become irreversible,” said Shannon Estenoz, assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks.
The rule was one of several steps the Trump administration took to scale back or alter endangered
species policies, including lifting blanket protections for animals newly listed as threatened and setting cost estimates for saving species. Biden ordered a review of his predecessor's environmental rulemaking shortly after taking office.
The Trump rule's habitat definition was “unclear, confusing and inconsistent with the conservation purposes” of the law, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Marine Fisheries Service said in a joint statement.
Jonathan Wood, vice president of law and policy with the Property and Environment Research Center, a self-described “free market environmentalism” group, said rescinding the rule would discourage private conservation efforts.
He represented forest landowners in a lawsuit
that prompted a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that led the Trump administration to craft its habitat definition.
The case involved the highly endangered dusky gopher frog, which survives in just a few Mississippi ponds.
The Fish and Wildlife Service designated 1,500 acres in neighboring Louisiana as critical habitat for the frog even though none lived there. Environmentalists said more space was essential for the frog but the landowner, timber company Weyerhaeuser Co., called it an unjust land grab.
The court ordered the government to decide what constitutes suitable habitat for the frog before designating areas as critical to save them.