The Trump administration on Friday moved to open the habitats of imperiled animals to farming, drilling, mining, real estate development and other activities in what environmentalists characterized as the most severe erosion of protections for wildlife in half a century.<\/p>\n
It did so by recasting a single word, \u201charm.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more than 50 years, the federal government has used a broader definition of harm to animals under the Endangered Species Act, a bedrock environmental law. It included any significant \u201cmodification or degradation\u201d of habitat that kills or injures animals by impairing their ability to eat, shelter or breed.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court upheld this interpretation in 1995, ruling against property owners who argued that harm should only mean directly killing or injuring an endangered animal.<\/p>\n
But on Friday, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced a final rule that rescinded this longstanding interpretation. Under the rule, destroying an endangered species\u2019 nest or habitat would no longer be considered illegal.<\/p>\n
The change could open the door for fossil fuel companies, agricultural interests, land developers and others to disturb or even destroy the habitats of vulnerable species. Many species are already running out of places to live<\/a>, and the new rule is likely to add extreme pressure, experts said.<\/p>\n Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, said it planned a legal challenge. But if the case were to reach the current Supreme Court, its conservative supermajority could enshrine the change, preventing future administrations from reversing it, said Karrigan B\u00f6rk, an environmental law professor at University of California Davis.<\/p>\n The move on Friday was the latest in a series of extraordinary efforts by the Trump administration to weaken environmental regulations designed to fight climate change and prevent species extinction. In March, a panel of administration officials voted to exempt oil and gas drilling<\/a> in the Gulf of Mexico from measures to protect endangered whales and other imperiled species.<\/p>\n The text of the final rule was not immediately published in the Federal Register, an online clearinghouse for federal regulations. But in a news release, the Interior and Commerce Departments suggested that the final rule closely resembled a proposal issued last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n The agencies said they were taking action to restore the Endangered Species Act to its original intent. They argued that in recent years, environmentalists and Democratic administrations had weaponized the act to block drilling and other development nationwide.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, federal agencies abused the E.S.A. to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,\u201d Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. \u201cThat approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people\u2019s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.\u201d<\/p>\n Legal scholars said the government was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact of the change, a step that would typically precede a move of this kind.<\/p>\n The change is \u201cundermining the fundamental purpose of the Endangered Species Act,\u201d said Lynn Scarlett, who served as deputy interior secretary under President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n