Washington, D.C. — Following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s announcement today that the Trump administration has weakened its rules for listing threatened and endangered species, protecting critical habitat, and coordinating between government agencies under the Endangered Species Act, Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for Energy and Environment Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
The final rules sideline science, allow industry to put a price on extinction, and deal a major blow to the prospect of recovery for America’s imperiled wildlife. The dismantling of this effective and necessary law is another signal of how conflicts of interest and ties to industry are having an outsized impact on environmental policy in the Trump administration.
At a time when more species are threatened by climate change and natural area loss, these rule changes undercut one of the country’s most successful environmental laws that since its inception has helped keep 99 percent of listed species from going extinct.
Additional resources:
For more information or to talk to an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected] or 202-478-6327.