The Biden administration proposed bringing back rules to protect imperiled plants and animals on Wednesday as officials moved to reverse changes under former President Donald Trump that weakened the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would 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 that were encouraged by industry, even as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.
Officials also would no longer consider economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. And the rules make it easier to designate areas as critical for a species’ survival, even if it is no longer found in those locations.
That could help with the recovery of imperiled fish and freshwater mussels in the Southeast, where the aquatic animals in many cases are absent from portions of their historical range, said Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Director Gary Frazer.
Frazer said Wednesday’s proposal would restore “baseline” protections so species don’t get pushed further toward extinction.
“We have the opportunity to try to improve the status of species before they get to the brink,” he said.
Details on the proposed rules, which could take a year to finalize, were obtained by The Associated Press in advance of their public release.
They’ll face strong pushback from Republican lawmakers, who say President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration has hampered oil, gas and coal development, and favors conservation over development.
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