Trump Administration Proposes New Habitat Cuts for Endangered Species

WASHINGTON, D.C— The Trump administration today announced a new proposed rule to circumvent establishing habitat protections for endangered species. The rule follows a string of other proposals to weaken the Endangered Species Act, including another rule proposed just last month putting additional restrictions on designation of critical habitat. 

In response Sierra Club Senior Our Wild America campaign representative Bonnie Rice issued the following statement. 

“If this proposal and the others put forward by the Trump administration are allowed to stand, it will be death by a thousand cuts for endangered wildlife across the country. Critical habitat is just that— critical for species’ survival and recovery. In the face of mass extinction, and climate and health crises worsened by habitat destruction and loss of nature, it’s essential that we protect more habitat, not less. 

“The science is clear that we need to protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030 to avoid the worst of the climate and extinction crises. We cannot afford to continue ignoring science by allowing the Trump administration’s misguided and reckless attacks on the Endangered Species Act to move forward.” 

More about the rule:

Reversing a prior Fish and Wildlife Service policy, the new proposed rule would allow even federal lands that are essential to the recovery of a species to be excluded from critical habitat protection, based on the economic interests of industry exploiters like oil and gas drillers. It also declares the additional administrative costs associated with examining the environmental harms of industry projects to critical habitat to be considered an “economic impact” that can weigh against protection. The rule also allows the agency to accept industry’s view of the weight to give so-called “nonbiological” impacts to development in balancing whether or not to exclude areas from critical habitat protection.