Legal
Judge Quashes Eased Trump Endangered Species Act Rules
An adult whooping crane eats blue crab at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas. Whooping cranes are on the endangered species list.
Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Kevin Sims
A federal judge has nixed Trump-era changes to the Endangered Species Act that were largely supported by construction and business-oriented groups.
In a July 5 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge John Tigar in the Northern District of California noted that both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had already proposed rescinding the 2019 rules and are developing new ones. Both agencies have said they have “substantial concerns” with the changes.
“Regardless of whether the court vacates the 2019 [Act] rules, they will not remain in effect in their current form,” Tigar wrote in an 11-page opinion.
The ruling is the culmination of a legal challenge to the rules brought by Earthjustice on behalf of several conservation organizations, shortly after they were promulgated.
Rules Limited Protections
The Trump administration had enacted three rules that limited protections for endangered and threatened species. One narrowed the habitats for wildlife that FWS and NMFS could consider as critical. Another eliminated the blanket rule that extended the same protections afforded endangered species to species considered threatened. The third required the two agencies to include the economic impacts when making decisions about the classification of a species as threatened or endangered.
Construction industry groups, such as the Associated General Contractors of America and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, say the changed rules provided more certainty to builders and project developers because they provide clear parameters, such as to what constitutes a habitat for an endangered species.
Prior to the 2019 revisions, the government used a more expansive approach that “caused uncertainty, litigation and delay without any clear link to better species preservation,” the groups said in comments to the two agencies.
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Conservation and environmental groups praise the decision.
“The 2019 rollbacks to the [law's] regulations were an unlawful and irrational mess that undermined critical protections for wildlife,” said Karimah Schoenhut, a Sierra Club attorney in a statement. “In the midst of a global extinction crisis, the court’s decision to vacate the rules will help imperiled species receive the protections they desperately need.”
