Interior Department to Define "Habitat" in the Endangered Species Act

The Trump administration will define "habitat" under the Endangered Species Act. The possible date is May to publish a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service regulations revision that will define the term.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) offers a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and their habitats. This is spearheaded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.

Formally defining "habitat" is part of an anticipated second wave of changes to the bedrock conservation law under the Trump administration.

According to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the addition to the ESA is undergoing interagency review.

This revision will be supervised by the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department's NOAA Fisheries.

However, endangered species are not animals and plants to protect under the Trump administration.

In August 2019, the Trump administration finalized rollbacks to regulations that implement key provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

One rule of the Endangered Species act weakened the consultation process, while the other two reduces designating critical habitat, weakens the listing process for imperiled species, and stops all protections for wildlife newly designated as threatened.

"Habitat" was never defined when it was passed in 1973.

The FWS maintains a worldwide list of endangered species which include birds, insects, fish, reptiles, mammals, crustaceans, flowers, grasses, and trees.

Within this law, federal agencies ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or huge modification of the designated critical habitat of such species.

This became relevant during a legal battle over FWS plans to protect the dusky gopher frog in Louisiana and the rights of private landowners, including timber giant Weyerhaeuser Co.

The Supreme Court directed a lower court to examine the meaning of "habitat" in the ESA, but the federal government and plaintiffs in the case reached a settlement and left unresolved questions over how "habitat" should be defined in the law.

Also, the new rules prohibit the designation of critical habitat for species threatened by climate change.

The Trump administration issued final rules amending the ESA earlier in 2019 - including language requiring "critical habitat" to have "one or more of the physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species"

According to Noah Greenwald, the Center for Biological Diversity's endangered species director, these changes negatively affect the Endangered Species Act's lifesaving protections for America's most vulnerable wildlife.

Since 1973, the Endangered Species Act has prevented 99 percent of the species under its protection from extinction.

In a 2016 report, since 2011 there was a 676 percent increase in legislative attacks on the Act. Republicans are responsible for 94 percent of those attacks.

The law also prohibits any action that causes a "taking" of any listed species of endangered fish or wildlife such as import, export, interstate, and foreign commerce.

RELATED ARTICLE: Lions Gain Protection Under Endangered Species Act