A federal district court today struck down a 2020 decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that removed federal protections from gray wolves across much of the US The Trump administration delisted the gray wolf after 45 years of protection under the Endangered Species Act despite the strong disagreement from experts who noted that the wolf’s recovery hinged on continued protections. Although President Biden expressed personal concern for wolves, the Biden administration chose to defend the delisting decision.
Today, the House Natural Resources Committee is taking up the Recovering America's Wildlife Act. This bill would invest nearly $1.4 billion for states, territories, and tribes to amplify their work in recovering, conserving, and protecting at-risk wildlife and habitat.
Today, the Endangered Species Coalition released a new report that highlights the devastating impact of climate change on ten dwindling US species, including the Florida Key deer, the Sierra Club’s nomination to the list. Biodiversity is the key to a healthy, livable planet, and without conserving species like these, we risk losing clean air and water and sufficient food to sustain us all.
Following the conclusion of last week’s White House Tribal Nations Summit, 62 conservation groups today called for the Biden administration to immediately relist the gray wolf and engage with Tribal nations on wolf management and protection.
Today, the Biden Administration moved to restore essential protections for critical habitats of threatened and endangered species. The move reverses Trump-era rules that unlawfully defined “habitat” to exclude certain locations from Endangered Species Act protections even if they will become habitat in the future, or could be restored to become suitable habitat for wildlife.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Department of the Interior restored protections for birds under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, reversing a controversial policy from the Trump administration. With today’s action, the Biden administration will enhance enforcement of provisions that compel industry actors and others to take precautions to prevent bird deaths and issue legal penalties for bird deaths caused by actions like oil drilling.
Conservation groups in the Pacific Northwest filed a legal challenge to reinstate federal protections on more than 3.4 million acres of federal old-growth forests, which are essential for the survival of the threatened northern spotted owl. The lawsuit asks the court to reject a rule issued in the last days of the Trump administration that eliminated one-third of the critical habitat protections for the species. The nonprofit law firms Earthjustice and Western Environmental Law Center represent Audubon Society of Portland, Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society in the lawsuit.
Rep. Simpson today put forward a significant and important initiative to address the critical issue of bringing back abundant salmon and steelhead in a restored Snake River. The initiative would make major infrastructure and economic investments to assure communities and the energy system remain strong.
NEW YORK— National environmental groups filed a lawsuit today in the Southern District of New York challenging the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which eliminated longstanding, vital protections for more than 1,000 species of waterfowl, raptors and songbirds.
Today, with six days remaining in the Trump administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a final rule eliminating 3.4 million acres of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl in Washington state, Oregon, and California. This decision comes one month after the Service announced that the species should be uplisted from threatened to endangered, but the agency is too busy to provide these desperately needed protections.