Trump administration sabotages Endangered Species Act

Kevin Martinez

The Trump administration has announced a major overhaul in the way it would enforce the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The changes allow federal authorities to take economic considerations into account when protecting a certain species. Environmental groups say the new rules will push more plants and animals into extinction from habitat loss and climate change.

Since 1973 when the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, more than 1,600 species of wildlife have been legally protected in the US and its territories. The act has been credited for saving the bald eagle, California condor, the grizzly bear and dozens of other species from extinction.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who made billions as an asset stripper in steel and other industries, spoke for the most rapacious sections of big business, declaring, “The revisions finalized with this rule-making fit squarely within the president’s mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public …”

Wildlife experts have criticized the administration’s moves, with Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity saying, “These changes crash a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act’s lifesaving protections for America’s most vulnerable wildlife. For animals like wolverines and monarch butterflies, this could be the beginning of the end.”

According to environmental group Earthjustice, the Endangered Species Act has stopped 99 percent of its protected species from going extinct. The Act also is also approved by 90 percent of Americans, according to the group.

Pro-business groups like the Property and Environment Research Center welcomed the changes. Executive Director Brian Yablonski said, “Our interest is getting this landmark wildlife protection law to work better. That means fostering conditions so landowners become more enthusiastic in their role as stewards for species recovery, not worried if they find an endangered species on their land.”

The deregulation of environmental rules has long been sought after by Democratic and Republican representatives of big business, with some saying the recent overhaul does not go far enough. Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso said, “These final rules are a good start, but the administration is limited by an existing law that needs to be updated. We must modernize the Endangered Species Act in a way that empowers states, promotes the recovery of species, and allows local economies to thrive.”

Before Monday’s announcement there were several attempts to gut the ESA. Since 2017, there have been about two dozen bills targeting the ESA that were either introduced in Congress or proposed by the Trump administration.

Among the changes proposed by the White House are reducing the protections for any species that are added to the “threatened species” list in the future. Until Monday, animals considered “threatened” were given the same protection as “endangered” animals. Now they will be protected only on a case-by-case basis.