Northern Spotted Owl. Wikicommons.
By Lisa Friedman, Kendra Pierre-Louis and Livia Albeck-Ripka | The New York Times
The Interior Department on Thursday proposed the most sweeping set of changes in decades to the Endangered Species Act, the law that brought the bald eagle and the Yellowstone grizzly bear back from the edge of extinction but which Republicans say is cumbersome and restricts economic development.
The proposed revisions have far-reaching implications, potentially making it easier for roads, pipelines and other construction projects to gain approvals than under current rules. One change, for instance, would eliminate longstanding language that prohibits considering economic factors when deciding whether or not a species should be protected.
The agency also intends to make it more difficult to shield species like the Atlantic sturgeon that are considered “threatened,” which is the category one level beneath the most serious one, “endangered.”
“This is an important issue and we hope that the resulting changes will protect private property rights and also provide for a reasonable process to allow important infrastructure to be developed on public lands.”
