Biden administration is committed to restoring protections for endangered species

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration took action Wednesday to make it easier to protect wildlife from climate disruption and other threats by restoring the protections of the Endangered Species Act that President Donald J. Trump had scrapped.

Three separate ordinances proposed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service would make it more difficult to remove a species from the endangered species list and more difficult to enforce endangered species protections. weakening, the classification one step below endangered.

The rules also eliminate Trump-era policies that would have allowed regulators to make economic assessments, such as estimating lost revenue for oil and gas operations in protecting species on their fields, in deciding whether deserves some kind of protection.

Listing species as threatened or endangered must be made, the proposed rule reads, “without reference to potential economic or other consequences of such determination” and should only be made on the basis of scientific evidence.

“The Endangered Species Act is the country’s most important conservation law that prevents the extinction of species and supports their recovery,” Martha Williams, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement. She said the proposed legislative changes “reaffirm our commitment to preserving American wildlife.”

The rule is expected to meet strong opposition from Republicans as well as farmers, ranchers, the logging industry and the oil and gas industry. By narrowing the scope of the Endangered Species Act in 2019, the Trump administration argued that the law hindered economic growth.