Biden administration restores threatened species protections dropped by Trump
Source: AP
Updated 12:48 PM EDT, March 28, 2024
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back back under former President Donald Trump. Among the changes announced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened.
The blanket protections regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law under Trump that were encouraged by industry. Those changes came as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.
Under the new rules, officials also will not consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. And the rules from the wildlife service and National Marine Fisheries Service make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species’ survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.
Details on the proposed rules, which could take a year to finalize, were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of their public release. Among the species that could benefit from the rules are imperiled fish and freshwater mussels in the Southeast, where the aquatic animals in many cases are absent from portions of their historical range, officials have said.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/biden-threatened-species-protections-9f5a2c12e51a857ae32b85997b54dcc7
Link to U.S. Fish and Wildlife PRESS RELEASE - Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Rules to Strengthen Protection and Recovery of Threatened and Endangered Species and Their Habitats
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