Environment & Climate
US environmental agencies revise Endangered Species Act enforcement rules
Recent regulatory shifts eliminate automatic protections for threatened species and rescind definitions covering habitat modification.
The short version
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA announced revisions to how the Endangered Species Act is implemented and enforced.
- Automatic protections for threatened species have been replaced with a requirement for case-by-case regulations, while the explicit inclusion of habitat modification in the definition of "harm" was rescinded.
- With the overturning of the Chevron precedent, federal courts rather than wildlife agencies will now determine the legal interpretation of ambiguous terms like "harm".
Key facts
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA announced major revisions to regulations under the Endangered Species Act.[Scientific American]
- Automatic protections for species designated as threatened were removed, requiring agencies to create individual rules for each species.[Scientific American]
- The agencies rescinded the regulatory definition of "harm" that previously included habitat modification.[Scientific American]
- Due to the overturning of the Supreme Court's Chevron decision, administrative agencies no longer receive judicial deference when interpreting ambiguous statutory terms.[Scientific American]
What remains uncertain
- It remains uncertain how federal courts will interpret the term "harm" in future litigation without agency deference or a codified regulatory definition.[Scientific American]
Sources
- How changes to Endangered Species Act regulations could hurt wildlifeScientific American metered