WEBVTT - Pending Actions Protecting Endangered Species Withdrawn (Audio) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.640 The Trump administration has withdrawn pending regulatory actions to protect 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.600 forty two endangered species, from the green sea turtle to 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.760 the yellow billed cuckoo, many of which detailed how to 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.360 protect animals or plants already deemed to be in peril, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.440 according to Office of Management and Budget data compiled by Bloomberg. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.159 Environmental activists say these regulatory actions were already scheduled and 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.680 the US Fish and Wildlife Service is violating the law 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.120 and putting species at risk of extinction. The Fish and 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.960 Wildlife Service was also criticized by environment environmental groups last 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.720 week when it declined to list twenty five species, including 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:44.040 the Pacific wal rusks, as endangered. Joining us are Charles Warren, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.800 the head of the environmental law practice at Cramer Leven 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.159 and Patrick Parento, professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:59.000 Chuck explain what these regulatory actions require, what they would do. Okay, 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.200 There's two types of actions that you generally see under 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:07.800 the Endangered Species Act June. One is the listing of 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.520 a species as either an endangered species one that's about 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:16.200 to go extinct, or a threatened species one that almost 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.920 on the verge of being endangered and So those are 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.320 the listing actions, and some of these involved listing actions 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.600 like you talked about the walrus. The other actions that 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.480 they take our habitat protection and that means once you 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.720 have one of these threatened or endangered species, you have 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.000 to take steps to protect the habitat. And those are 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.880 other kinds of regulations that they put out and uh, 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.479 needless to say, these are all controversial under have been 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.520 for a number of years because many people develop, real 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.960 estate developers, oil and gas interests and others. I think 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.600 that all that does is just stifle development in this 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.520 protection of habitats, and that's why it's always been a 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.640 controvers feel program ever since the law was enacted in 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:07.600 ninety three. So, pat, what what did the government do 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:13.600 here in terms of delaying these rules. Well, technically, this 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.079 was a decision by Mick mulveney, the head of the 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.639 Office of Management and Budget, which performs kind of an 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.720 oversight role on rulemakings for the government, and they put 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.400 out this agenda every year of the rules that are 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.960 in process, and they developed work plans for the individual agencies. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:38.120 This time around, mulvaney um basically unilaterally from what we know, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.160 not even consulting with the Vision Wildlife Service, which administers 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.320 the Endangered Species Act, just made a decision that that 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.600 a whole slew of these rules that list species, says 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.280 Chuck was describing, um, simply wouldn't be done this year. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.280 They just pulled them off of the rulemaking calendar and 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.360 put them in kind of a limbo status to be 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.720 dealt with later. And I can tell you why that's problematic. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:07.400 If you like, yes, go ahead. Yeah. So the problem 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:12.120 is that the Endangerous Species Act contains some very strict deadline, 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:16.400 statutory deadlines written right into the law that requires that 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:22.040 these decisions be finalized. Once a species is proposed for listing, UM, 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.200 it has to be made final within twelve months. And 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.160 as Chuck was talking about the designation of what's called 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.040 critical habitat for those species, that has to be done 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.160 either at the same time of the final listing or 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.800 within a year of it. So, these statutory deadlines, it 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.200 looks like for many of these are going to be 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.640 violated by this action, which is simply gonna throw us 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.760 right back into court where we've, as Chuck was saying, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.480 where we've been for decades, really fighting over how badly 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.800 the backlog of these listing decisions has grown. So this 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.119 is really self defeating even for the administration, because it's 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.600 going to mean the government, the Department of Justice official 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.320 life if they're going to have to be defending actions 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.720 which will likely have found to be illegal, which doesn't 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:17.080 seem to benefit anybody, Chuck. There are regulations about withdrawing regulations, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.120 rules about withdrawing rules that we've talked about before. How 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.720 has the Trump administration been faring in court cases involving 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:30.279 the Endangered Species Act? They haven't been faring that well, June. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.479 You know, they've lost a number of lawsuits that have 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.800 been brought by groups that seek to protect species when 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.479 they've tried to do some of these things. And I 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.880 think they're going to continue, as Pat said, to lose 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.640 these things because they're really doing things which are against 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.040 the law. And and the the interesting thing about it 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.320 is the o MB Officer Manage and Budget procedure that 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.240 Pat talked about. That's really sort of a procedure. It 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:05.040 is an internal administration procedure. It's really not necessarily laid 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.279 out by the statute, and the Fish and Wildlife Service 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.760 and the Department of Interior have these obligations under the statute, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.560 and you just can't sort of say, okay, just drop that. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.480 And I think we're gonna find out, as Pat said, 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.840 that it's going to be counterproductive. So Pat, assuming that, uh, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.799 this doesn't hold up, you know what what ends up happening? 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:31.279 What will the federal government in fact take action? I 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.120 think they're going to be forced to take action at 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.800 some point. But of course, nothing happens very fast in litigation. UM, 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.880 so it maybe months or longer before we know the 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.440 outcome here. Um. The environmental groups will be moving as 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.600 fast as they can. I'm sure that their computers are 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.960 busy typing out complaints as we speak to get into 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.919 court and to try to get the courts to intervene 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.040 in this. But the longer these species are delayed they're 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.760 listening to the data shows, the worst their condition becomes 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.159 in the harder it becomes to recover them, the more 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.600 costly it is to try to recover them. You lose 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.520 opportunities the longer you wait, and so on. So you know, 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.960 once again the best way to deal with these problems 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.080 is to try to get out in front of them 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.080 and not let them get worse and worse Chuck. So 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.320 we've been talking about the regulatory actions to protect those 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:26.000 forty two endangered species, but as far as the failure 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.080 to list twenty five species last week, including the Pacific 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.640 Walls as endangered, is there anything that can be done 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.000 about that in a lawsuit? Yes, because a lot of 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.880 times groups petition to have species listed, and uh as 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.880 as Pett I think was saying, before there's a clock 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.720 that starts to run on that they have to react 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.960 to the petition in a certain period of time, and 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.960 then they have to take some action. I mean, then 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.080 have they can say we refuse to list, and then 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.200 that that goes into the question of what data there 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.920 and that subject again to a lawsuit. So these are 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.360 these are also challengeable and uh I think history has 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.920 shown that a number of those things have also been 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:14.920 overturned in court. So it's a I think that they've 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.440 been discussions for years about trying to change the Endangered 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.720 Species Act because people find it, you know, it's a 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.440 very difficult statute to get out of, and they've been unsuccessful. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.200 And I think there's going to be a continued effort 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.920 to do that now in this Congress, and we'll see 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.160 what happens with Anna, but I thank you it will 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.800 be successful. Thank you both for being on. You are 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.040 environmental duo Charles war On, the head of the environmental 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.640 practice at Cramer Levin and Patrick Parento, Professor of environmental 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.080 law at Vermont Law School.