August 15, 2019

U.S. gov’t weakens endangered species act

topic:	Nature
located:	USA
editor:	Yair Oded

On Monday, the U.S. government announced a new set of regulations that would dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act and clear the way for mining enterprises in habitats of protected species.

The Endangered Species Act was signed into law in 1973 by the Nixon administration, and since has constituted the most significant instrument for the protection of wildlife, fish, and plants. According to scientists, in the decades since its institution, the act has been credited with saving from extinction the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and American alligator, among many other species.

Now, after years of relentless efforts by Republican lawmakers and oil and gas lobbyists to weaken the law or upend it altogether, the Trump administration successfully restricted its scope by making it easier to remove a species from the endangered species list as well as decrease the level of protection for threatened species. 

Whereas up until now regulators were restricted exclusively to scientific evidence while assessing which species should be protected, the new regulations permit them to conduct economic evaluations of the projected loss of revenue as they determine whether or not habitats can be opened up for mining, drilling, logging, and farming. 

Among the most disturbing aspects of the new law is the government’s increased authority to determine what it deems as the “foreseeable future” when evaluating possible risks to a certain species and deciding whether or not it should be striped from its protections. This means that regulators would, in many cases, be unable to consider climate change as a possible threat to wildlife and plants, seeing as its effects take place over extended periods of time.

David Bernhardt, Trump’s Interior Secretary, who is himself a former oil lobbyist who was vocal in his objection to the act, stated that the new regulations were designed to increase “transparency”, adding that, “[T]he act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation.” 

Environmentalists have since raised the alarm and warned about the catastrophic implications the new regulations will have. In an interview for The New York Times, Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice, stated that ,”There can be economic costs to protecting endangered species,” adding that, “If we make decisions based on short-term economic costs, we’re going to have a whole lot more extinct species.”

Numerous Democratic congress members and state attorneys general have also decried the new law and announced that they intend to challenge it in court. 

The new regulations came on the heels of a 1,500-page report compiled by the United Nations earlier this year, which states that human activities are currently placing as many as one million plant and animal species at risk of extinction. 

The report, which was prepared by hundreds of experts who cited thousands of scientific studies, indicates that the harm such mass extinction would cause to the world’s ecosystem would only increase the dangers of climate change and threaten the survival of the human race. 

Image: The U.S. EPA’s flag flies outside the Federal Triangle complex in Washington, D.C., AIDAN WAKELY MULRONEY / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0