The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law 50 years ago by President Richard Nixon. It continues to be a powerful force in environmental protection—but for good or ill? PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, has published a special issue of its quarterly publication, PERC Reports, titled “Fifty Years of the Endangered Species…
Search Results for: endangered species
Back to ‘Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up’: Court Drops Trump’s Common-Sense Rules on Endangered Species
“With this change, we’re back to the ‘shoot, shovel, and shut up’ status quo.” (PERC Tweet). A federal district court in California has vacated Trump-administration rules designed to make the Endangered Species Act more fair and effective. The most important rule dealt with the treatment of threatened species, which are species that are not yet…
Three Reasons Why the New Endangered Species Rules Make Sense
Daren Bakst of the Heritage Foundation lists three benefits of the Trump administration’s new regulations:
- No longer treating threatened species as if they were endangered.
- Promoting much-needed transparency.
- Stopping critical habitat designations that don’t help to conserve species.
New Rules on Endangered Species: Did the NYT Get it Wrong?
New York Times: “Trump Administration Weakens Protections for Endangered Species.”
The new rules would make it easier to remove a species from the endangered list and weaken protections for threatened species, the classification one step below endangered. And, for the first time, regulators would be allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, estimating lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat — when deciding whether a species warrants protection.
No, according to PERC; “The New Endangered Species Act Rules Explained.”
This rule-change does not allow economic impacts to affect whether a species is listed as endangered or threatened. Indeed, the rule explicitly “acknowledge[s] that the statute and its legislative history are clear that listing determinations must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available” according to five statutory factors. Thus, the rule gives the agency no authority to decline to list a species based on the economic impacts of such decision. If the agency attempted to do so, it would violate the statute and the rule.
Threats to Endangered Whales Undermine Biden’s Offshore Wind Ambitions
President Joe Biden’s grandiose plans for offshore industrial wind facilities lining the nation’s coasts have more than a few hurdles to clear before they can become reality. One of those is the fate of endangered North Atlantic right whales, whose migration route is in the bullseye of the offshore wind proposals.
How to Turn a Bee into an Endangered Fish
A Sacramento, California, court has ruled that bumble bees are included in the definition of “fish” in California’s Endangered Species Act. The court’s May 31, 2022, said: “The issue presented here is whether the bumble bee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish, as that term is used in the definitions of endangered…