Trump administration’s proposed change to Endangered Species Act sparks concern
Conservationists worry that a proposal to redefine the meaning of ‘harm’ will eliminate habitat protection and lead to mining and logging
US president Trump plans to overhaul the Endangered Species Act to make it easier to build in areas where endangered species live, a White House official confirmed on Wednesday. Photo: AP
The Trump administration has proposed a rule that will redefine what it means to “harm” a protected species, a move conservationists say will strip vulnerable plants and animals of the habitat they need to survive.
The proposal by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) would limit the meaning under the Endangered Species Act of taking direct action to kill or injure endangered or threatened wildlife.
This removes the prohibition against habitat destruction, which could lead to logging, mining, development and other activities that could lead to the extinction of critically endangered animals.
It fits White House officials’ intent to spur economic growth by slashing regulations.
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If adopted, the change could significantly curtail the reach of the Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973 under former US president Nixon. It would also flout a 1995 US Supreme Court ruling that upheld the definition of harm to encompass “significant habitat modification or degradation.”
“What they’re proposing will just fundamentally upend how we’ve been protecting endangered species in this country,” said Noah Greenwald, co-director of endangered species at the Centre for Biological Diversity, a conservation group.
According to Greenwald, the previous definition prevented acts like cutting down swathes of old-growth forests in Northern California and the Pacific northwest where federally threatened northern spotted owls nest and roost.
Or filling in a wetland inhabited by red-legged frogs, California’s state amphibian that is also listed as federally threatened.
Under the proposed meaning, it would take something like the actual shooting of an owl to qualify, he said.
“I think there would just be a lot more room for timber companies to log their habitat without concern,” he said.
Given the owls’ precipitous decline in recent decades, “this potentially could be the nail in the coffin,” he added.
The concept of harm in the Endangered Species Act is wrapped up in its prohibition of “take,” which means “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” a species protected by the law.
“This makes sense in light of the well-established, centuries-old understanding of ‘take’ as meaning to kill or capture a wild animal,” the FWS and NMFS wrote in proposing the revision, adding that current regulations “do not match the single, best meaning of the statute”.
Publishing the proposed rule in the Federal Register – set for Thursday – triggers a 30-day public comment period. Once the public comments are analysed, a final rule could be issued in a matter of months.
Greenwald said his group would challenge it in court if the change is made.
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The proposed change comes amid a flurry of actions by the Trump administration to push for more development and resource extraction on public lands, which conservationists believe will harm wildlife, among other deleterious effects.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration ordered the immediate expansion of timber production in the US. It was followed by an emergency declaration by US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins mandating the US Forest Service to open up roughly 112.5 million acres of national forestland to logging.
A February order by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum directed his staff to review and possibly alter national monuments as part of a push to expand US energy production.