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 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.
Catherine Semcer, a research fellow with the Property and Environment Research Center, explained why trophy hunting actually helps preserve lions and other endangered species.