Suit Filed to Restore Bird Protections Stripped by Trump
The Trump administration radically recast the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act to only apply to corporations intentional, but not accidental, hurting or killing of birds (such as letting them drown in uncovered oil pits). This reinterpretation of the law eliminated longstanding, vital protections for more than 1,000 species of waterfowl, raptors and songbirds. So on Tuesday the Center, along with allies, filed a lawsuit to return the Act to its former strength. Trump s tenure was a reign of terror for wildlife, said Noah Greenwald, our endangered species director. The revised rule is nothing but a gift to oil companies and other polluters, allowing them to kill birds without legal consequence. The courts rightfully stopped this farce once before, and we hope this latest suit fully restores legal protection to birds that desperately need it.
As President Joe Biden takes office today, his administration announced a series of steps aimed at combating the climate crisis and protecting wildlife from extinction. These include reentering the Paris Agreement, cancelling the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, and imposing a moratorium on oil leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Biden is also launching a broad review of the Trump administration’s anti-wildlife policies, including Trump’s gutting of Migratory Bird Treaty Act rules, his move to strip Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves, and his failure to protect monarch butterflies.
“From Paris to Keystone to protecting gray wolves, these huge first moves from President Biden show he’s serious about stopping the climate and extinction crises,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “These strong steps must be the start of a furious race to avert catastrophe. Reversing Trump’s harmful
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Recent news that the Democrats flipped both U.S. Senate seats in Georgia’s run-off election means that the Democrats have enough votes to add the Congressional Review Act (CRA)[1] to the tools that could be used to advance President-elect Joe Biden’s regulatory agenda through the repeal of recent Trump administrative actions. The CRA is a desirable tool because it can reverse actions of the prior administration without the time and resources necessary to do so through traditional rulemaking.
But what considerations might Congress and the Biden administration face in deciding whether to employ this tool? And what environment and natural resources actions might be targets for the CRA as a result? This blog post breaks everything down.
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On 7 January 2021, the Trump administration finalized a new rule that limits the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA or the Act).
1 Under the new rule (which President Biden has already directed the Department of the Interior (Interior) to review), the Fish and Wildlife Service (the FWS) has declared that the MBTA covers only intentional, and not incidental, take of protected birds, memorializing a memorandum that was rejected by a federal court last August.
2 The new rule if it withstands legal challenges and efforts by the Biden administration and Congress to reverse it significantly reduces the activities that would result in liability under the Act, and as a result, reduces the risks businesses and developers face.