New Trump rules would curb U.S. endangered species protections

[Belsnickel]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/new-trump-rules-would-curb-us-endangered-species-protections

Quote:President Donald Trump’s administration announced changes to Endangered Species Act (ESA) rules today that complicate efforts to protect at-risk animals and plants by requiring higher standards for government action.

The new rules will apply only to future listing decisions. Plants and animals with existing protections won’t be affected unless their status changes.

Administration officials hailed the reforms as balancing conservation with economic interests.

“The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal—recovery of our rarest species. The Act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement.

“An effectively administered Act ensures more resources can go where they will do the most good: on-the-ground conservation.”

Environmentalists promised to challenge the changes in court, and Democrats promise to attack them on Capitol Hill.

The rules track with the administration’s draft regulations in making the biggest change in a generation to a broad swath of the federal conservation regime.

Some of the regulations’ biggest impacts deal with the difference between threatened and endangered species.

Wildlife is deemed threatened when it’s at risk of becoming endangered in the “foreseeable future.” The administration wants to consider only future factors that it deems “likely,” not just possible.

The draft regulations would have also allowed the government to disregard some data from computer models; it’s not clear whether the final rule keeps that provision.

“We’ll look out in the future only so far as we can reliably predict and not speculate,” said Gary Frazer, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s assistant director for ecological services.

There’s no exact time frame the government will follow, he said, adding that the new standard will codify the Interior Department solicitor’s opinion that the government currently relies on.

“It’ll only go so far as we can reasonably determine that the threats—so this might be climate-induced changes in the physical environment—and the species’ responses to those threats are likely. That we’re not speculating about those,” Frazer said.

Threatened and endangered species have enjoyed some identical protections since 1978, when the Fish and Wildlife Service used its flexible authority to automatically grant threatened species the same safeguards as endangered ones from harm or disturbance. That’s known as the “blanket 4(d) rule.”

The administration is ending that. FWS will now have to craft individual regulations for each threatened species.

Administration officials said that provision would encourage better conservation plans, including more voluntary programs. Conservationists predict the extra work will worsen the service’s backlog.

The regulations call for greater emphasis on economic impact analysis, even as environmental groups note the law forbids anything except science from influencing a listing decision.

The regulations allow the government to present economic impacts alongside a listing decision. To stay within the law, separate teams would work in parallel on the listing decision and the economic analysis, officials said.

The rules also change the way officials designate critical habitat for a species’ recovery. Officials would have to consider protecting areas already occupied by the species before considering unoccupied habitat. Those decisions had been made in tandem in the past.

More at the link. Hard to see this as anything other than putting corporate interests over conservation of our resources, which is unfortunate.

[Dill]

(08-12-2019, 08:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/new-trump-rules-would-curb-us-endangered-species-protections


More at the link. Hard to see this as anything other than putting corporate interests over conservation of our resources, which is unfortunate.

Lowering the cost of doing business in the US will help offset the cost of tariffs.

[*Nately120*]

Ehh no sense protecting this land's resources, it's not like people died fighting to protect them or some sort of God created them for us, or anything.

[NATI BENGALS]

(08-12-2019, 08:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/new-trump-rules-would-curb-us-endangered-species-protections


More at the link. Hard to see this as anything other than putting corporate interests over conservation of our resources, which is unfortunate.

Many trump appointees are basically industry lobbyist whose ideals are opposite of the purpose of the government agency they now run. 

But waahoo Trump. I like getting my science from the stable genius lying orange conman. 

[Benton]

I see both sides.

I'm a fan of nature. I try to spend as much time outdoors, and I think it's everyone's job to make sure we protect the environment. On the other hand, anyone who has ever dealt with municipal projects knows the time that goes into environmental studies and the delays over the dumbest things. Want a building project killed? Say there's a chance some animal lives there.

We've had a couple in my area. One if a riverfront project that's had a lot of state and local money pumped into it, which would include building new floodwall sections that are badly needed. The problem? A mussel on the endangered list that's down river might be impacted if they increases the footprint of the riverfront. Maybe. Same with the Indiana brown bat, which has caused severe flooding issues, held up road expansions and killed a half dozen economic development projects in my area. The areas in questions are all located within 10 miles of each other and there's a chance the bats may be located somewhere in that area.

With the bat flooding issue, it caused the state not to reduce beaver dams that turned a marsh area frequented by blue herons into a lake. The herons and a few other species died out or moved off because of the habitat change. A biologist for KDFWR told me that now, even if they got permission to destroy the dams, the canopy is gone, so the marsh wouldn't return without.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

Quote:The new rules will apply only to future listing decisions. Plants and animals with existing protections won’t be affected unless their status changes.

[/quote]Threatened and endangered species have enjoyed some identical protections since 1978, when the Fish and Wildlife Service used its flexible authority to automatically grant threatened species the same safeguards as endangered ones from harm or disturbance.... The administration is ending that. FWS will now have to craft individual regulations for each threatened species.[/quote]

[/quote]Officials would have to consider protecting areas already occupied by the species before considering unoccupied habitat.[/quote]


None of that seems all that world ending as some people are trying making it out to be. All of that sounds relatively reasonable, even if a bit shady reasoning.

Granted I personally just care more about curbing pollution that I care about some Delta Smelt (which the US Government spent $10m.

The US currently has 1,471 listed animals, including at least 21 different kinds of *SALAMANDER*. We have probably gone a little too far the other way as far as protections go.



- - - - - - - - - -
......I am also tired of those damn Canadian Geese being protected and just shitting EVERYWHERE and are aggressive. So if we have to trade some Delta Smelt and some River Mussel to be able to treat them like feral hogs and just get rid of those, I can get on board.

[Belsnickel]

(08-13-2019, 01:51 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: None of that seems all that world ending as some people are trying making it out to be. All of that sounds relatively reasonable, even if a bit shady reasoning.

That is honestly how a lot of environmental and wildlife protections have been stripped away over the years. Small, incremental changes that appear reasonable but really result in corporate interests overtaking things. This is true not just in conservation, but in many policy arenas.

(08-13-2019, 01:51 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Granted I personally just care more about curbing pollution that I care about some Delta Smelt (which the US Government spent $10m.

Delta smelt are an indicator species, which are vitally important to our understanding of human impacts on our waterways. Their presence, or lack thereof, can tell us the overall health of a given waterway and what we may expect for other life along the path including larger species in the area, plants, and even humans. A waterway in trouble is trouble for humans.

(08-13-2019, 01:51 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The US currently has 1,471 listed animals, including at least 21 different kinds of *SALAMANDER*. We have probably gone a little too far the other way as far as protections go.

Why? Don't be knocking my pal Plethodon shenandoah, now. Our environment is a delicately balanced ecosystem. The anthropocene has done a lot of things to throw off that balance in many ways and we spent centuries not giving a damn about that. We have caused the extinction of countless species without ever thinking about how that could affect the overall ecosystem. We need to be smart about conservation, but we also need to recognize when these valuable species need our help.

Except giant pandas. They are just trying to go extinct with their terrible diet and lack of sex.

(08-13-2019, 01:51 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: ......I am also tired of those damn Canadian Geese being protected and just shitting EVERYWHERE and are aggressive. So if we have to trade some Delta Smelt and some River Mussel to be able to treat them like feral hogs and just get rid of those, I can get on board.

I know you're being facetious, here, but Canadian geese aren't protected. They are "Least Concern" as far as the IUCN status. There is a more nuanced answer than that related to the North American Model of Wildlife Management, though, but that is for a different discussion that would get far, far nerdier than I intended this thread to be.

Conservation is where I can get reeeeeeeeeeeeeal nerdy/wonky.

[Belsnickel]

(08-13-2019, 01:04 AM)Benton Wrote: I see both sides.

I'm a fan of nature. I try to spend as much time outdoors, and I think it's everyone's job to make sure we protect the environment. On the other hand, anyone who has ever dealt with municipal projects knows the time that goes into environmental studies and the delays over the dumbest things. Want a building project killed? Say there's a chance some animal lives there.

We've had a couple in my area. One if a riverfront project that's had a lot of state and local money pumped into it, which would include building new floodwall sections that are badly needed. The problem? A mussel on the endangered list that's down river might be impacted if they increases the footprint of the riverfront. Maybe. Same with the Indiana brown bat, which has caused severe flooding issues, held up road expansions and killed a half dozen economic development projects in my area. The areas in questions are all located within 10 miles of each other and there's a chance the bats may be located somewhere in that area.

With the bat flooding issue, it caused the state not to reduce beaver dams that turned a marsh area frequented by blue herons into a lake. The herons and a few other species died out or moved off because of the habitat change. A biologist for KDFWR told me that now, even if they got permission to destroy the dams, the canopy is gone, so the marsh wouldn't return without.

I wouldn't argue that every attempt at wildlife conservation is good. I think that everyone, many conservationists included, would say that there have been attempts at conservation that have gone awry through unintended consequences and short-sighted policy. I'm seeing some of that around my parts on a micro level.

However, this alteration to the ESA rules that utilizes economic concerns in the policy adaptation process is flying in the face of the spirit, and the letter according to some, of the law. The whole idea behind the ESA is that we put aside the economic interests to protect species because, in most cases, that was what got this species to the point it is at.