The Trump administration is moving to undo protective measures for endangered species and their habitats by reinstating amendments made in the U.S President’s first term that were subsequently blocked by his successor, President Joe Biden.
One intended change would end provisions that automatically protect animals and plants once they are classified as being under “threat”. Instead, U.S. government agencies will be required to draw up species-specific rules, a lengthier and more arduous process. For years, critics – notably Republican members of Congress and energy and agricultural interests – have maintained that economic growth has suffered because the 1973 law has been too loosely applied.
Environmentalists, however, warn that the proposed changes could result in years-long delays, setting back efforts to save species such as the monarch butterfly, Florida manatee, California spotted owl, and North American wolverine.
“We would have to wait until these poor animals are almost extinct before we can start protecting them,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s Stephanie Kurose, who called the proposed changes “absurd and heartbreaking.”
In Donald Trump‘s second term, officials have been looking to revise the Endangered Species Act’s definition of the word “harm” as a means of circumventing species-protection measures that might hinder logging activities in national forests and on public lands. According to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the administration plans to restore the Act to its original intent while respecting “the livelihoods of Americans who depend on our land and resources.”
Definitions figured in a suit against the Interior Department over the “blanket” protection rule filed by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation last March. They challenged the rule’s legality, claiming it inhibited states and landowners from assisting in species recovery efforts. Species designated as “threatened” under the so-called blanket rule automatically qualify for the same protections as those designated “endangered.” The plaintiffs maintained that such an interpretation could lead landlords to lose interest in what happened to a species if they felt that efforts on their part to downgrade the status of an “endangered” species to that of “threatened” had no impact on the authorities and failed to ease government restrictions.
