The Biden administration has taken steps to enhance wildlife protection from climate disruption and other threats by reinstating safeguards to the Endangered Species Act, which were previously removed by President Donald J. Trump.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service, has proposed three separate regulations aimed at making it more challenging to delist species from the endangered list and to weaken protections for threatened species, which are one step below endangered.
Furthermore, these rules eliminate a Trump-era policy that allowed regulators to consider economic assessments, such as estimating revenue losses for oil and gas operations, when determining whether a species should receive protection. The proposed rule emphasizes that listing species as threatened or endangered should solely be based on scientific evidence and should not be influenced by potential economic impacts.
Martha Williams, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, stated that the Endangered Species Act is the country’s leading conservation law, crucial for preventing species extinction and supporting their recovery. She expressed that the proposed changes to the law reaffirm the commitment to conserving America’s wildlife.
However, it is expected that the rule will face strong opposition from Republicans, as well as from farmers, ranchers, the logging industry, and the oil and gas industry. The Trump administration, when narrowing the scope of the Endangered Species Act in 2019, argued that the law hindered economic growth.
