{"id":24446,"date":"2021-01-19T06:52:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T11:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.endangered.org\/?p=24446"},"modified":"2021-01-19T07:06:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:06:47","slug":"the-endangered-species-act-in-a-new-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.endangered.org\/the-endangered-species-act-in-a-new-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Endangered Species Act in a New Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"\"<\/a>The Endangered Species Act in 2021<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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The Trump Administration has rolled back more than 130 environmental safeguards, including those intended to protect wildlife. We are now in a biodiversity extinction crisis, but we did not get into this state in just the past four years, it was decades in the making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has not been a priority to any Administration or Congress, unless to harm it. Every Administration and Congress has been willing to trade ESA, and wildlife protections, away. President Obama did more to protect the environment then President Trump, yet he weakened ESA protections, enforcement and implementation, destroyed wildlife habitat for profit and failed to help some highly endangered species. As we move forward with the new Biden-Harris Administration we must ensure history does not repeat itself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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BIODIVERSITY CRISIS NEEDS EMERGENCY RESPONSE<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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The sixth mass extinction of wildlife is accelerating and scientists warn it may be a tipping point for the collapse of civilization.<\/p>\n

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THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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SALAZAR\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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President Obama nominated a very moderate Secretary of Interior. Salazar\u2019s voting record while in Congress was weak in the arenas most important to a Secretary of the Interior: protecting scientific integrity, combating global warming, reforming energy development and protecting endangered species.<\/p>\n

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SPECIES<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Wolves: <\/strong>The Obama administration issued a rule that would delist wolves across the United States in 2013.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Grizzly Bears in the Northern Rockies<\/strong>: The Obama Administration tried to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, only to have the courts reverse the decision and reinstate ESA protections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Whales<\/strong>:\u00a0 The Obama Administration advocated to suspend the international whaling moratorium and, separately, declined to adequately enforce international agreements on commercial whaling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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HABITAT<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Oil and Gas: <\/strong>After the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Obama\u2019s Department of Interior (DOI) did not ban seismic testing and oil and gas drilling in the Arctic ocean and off the Atlantic Coast until shortly before the 2016 election.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Obama signed legislation in 2015 ending the decades-old ban on crude oil exports<\/a> creating an economic incentive to \u201cdrill baby drill\u201d. Oil production doubled between 2009 and 2016 and the administration aggressively pursued the XL pipeline.<\/p>\n

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THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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The Obama Administration created a regulation that put hundreds of endangered plants and animals at greater risk of extinction by dramatically reducing protections for their designated critical habitat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The administration issued a policy that allows the FWS to exclude areas from critical habitat based on, in many cases, vague promises from landowners to conserve habitat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The administration enacted a policy<\/a> that drastically limits which species get protection in the first place by changing the \u201csignificant portion of range\u201d provision.<\/p>\n

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ESA 4(d) rule – loophole\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The 4(d) rule was created to provide the USFWS with flexibility to protect threatened species. However, it has been exploited and used as a loophole to weaken or not protect species at all. The Center for Biological Diversity found that the Obama Administration used this detrimental loophole more than any other Administration.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND ESA\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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