Endangered Species Act – No Fricking Fracking

Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw criticism

National Geographic: Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw criticism. Overshadowed by the turmoil of the presidential transition, the Trump administration’s actions may harm animals and the environment.

OVER THE PAST four years, wildlife and environmental protections in the United States have been under attack. President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a campaign of deregulation, undoing or weakening scores of laws and policies that protect threatened species and the environment.

Policies that hurt wildlife have included scuttling a complex compromise to conserve sage grouse, plowing through wilderness areas to build a border wall, and removing gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act. “The Trump Administration has been consistently bad on wildlife… from day one until the last days,” says Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for Earthjustice, an environmental law group.

That pattern has continued in the final hours of Trump’s presidency. Here are a few of the key environmental developments, which during the pandemic, impeachment, and political unrest, haven’t received enough attention, experts say.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to National Geographic’s requests for comment on this or related issues.

Protected habitat for imperiled spotted owls is slashed: “Trump’s latest parting gift to the timber industry”

CBS News: Protected habitat for imperiled spotted owls is slashed: “Trump’s latest parting gift to the timber industry“.

The Trump administration said Wednesday that it would slash millions of acres of protected habitat designated for the imperiled northern spotted owl in Oregon, Washington state and Northern California. Much of the land is in prime timber locations in Oregon’s coastal ranges.

Environmentalists immediately decried the move and accused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Donald Trump of taking a parting shot at protections designed to help restore the species in favor of the timber industry. The tiny owl is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and was rejected for an upgrade to endangered status last year by the federal agency despite losing nearly 4% of its population annually.

Mountain pine tree that feeds grizzlies is threatened

ABC News discusses how a Mountain pine tree that feeds grizzlies is threatened. US officials say climate change, beetles and a deadly fungus are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some threatened grizzly bears.

Climate change, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some grizzly bears and found across the West, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

A Fish and Wildlife Service proposal scheduled to be published Wednesday would protect the whitebark pine tree as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, according to documents posted by the Office of the Federal Register.

The move marks a belated acknowledgement of the tree’s severe declines in recent decades and sets the stage for restoration work. But government officials said they do not plan to designate which forest habitats are critical to the tree’s survival, stopping short of what some environmentalists argue is needed.

As the nation reels, Trump Administration continues environmental policy rollbacks

Environmental Health News discusses, as the nation reels, Trump Administration continues environmental policy rollbacks. Just beneath the headlines, politics and nature are whipping up a few more storms.

There’s a whirlwind of distressing news these days. Rage over racism; fretting over finance; and coronavirus may just be getting its boots on. It’s all a perfect time to unleash some quiet mayhem on the environment.

It’s all hard to write about, and I’m sorry, I know it’s equally hard to read about. But it’s even more impossible to ignore.

The Trump Administration’s war on environmental regulation might draw a little more attention in normal times. Here are a few things, flying under the radar, that will have ramifications for years.

In early June, Trump launched a frontal attack on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is a 50-year-old, profoundly un-sexy law that generates tons of paperwork and keeps scores of attorneys gainfully employed. It’s also a cornerstone of environmental law—the statute that requires an Environmental Impact Statement for federally-funded development projects, including pipeline and construction, airport expansion, and more.

Trump signs order removing environmental review of major projects

The Hill discusses how Trump signed an order removing environmental review of major projects.

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday evening that would waive requirements under a suite of environmental laws, a move the administration says will boost the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The new order expedites the permitting of construction projects and energy projects overseen by several federal agencies, using emergency authorities to skirt environmental regulations with little public notice.

“From the beginning of my Administration, I have focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays,” Trump wrote in the order. “The need for continued progress in this streamlining effort is all the more acute now, due to the ongoing economic crisis.”

The order would slash the requirements in a number of landmark environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires rigorous environmental review before building new infrastructure like highways or pipelines.

Federal Court Tosses Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s Key Endangered Species Permits – 2 articles

This article discusses a recent court decision to toss the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s key Endangered Species permits. A federal court has thrown out two key permits for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline. U.S. 4th Circuit Court Chief Judge Robert Gregory said in an opinion issued Friday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t adhere to its mandate to protect endangered species when it fast-tracked re-issuing two permits to the natural gas project proposed to go through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.

This article discusses the same topic. A mussel, a bat, a bee and a blind crustacean are once again blocking the construction of the 600-mile-long Atlantic Coast Pipeline backed by Dominion Energy.

Keystone XL Pipeline Hit with New Delay: Judge Orders Environmental Review

This article discusses how the Trump administration has been trying to rewrite two laws at the heart of the oil pipeline ruling: NEPA and the Endangered Species Act.

The embattled Keystone XL oil pipeline faces yet another delay after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to conduct a new environmental review of the project.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris of Montana issued a sharp rebuke to the federal government, which had argued it need not produce an extensive new environmental impact statement for the pipeline after regulators in Nebraska ordered its builder to follow a new route.

In his ruling Wednesday, Morris said the alternative route would cross five different counties and different water bodies, would be longer than the original path, and would require an additional pump station with supporting power line infrastructure. As a result, he wrote, federal agencies “cannot escape their responsibility” to evaluate the alternative under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).