Endangered Species Law & Policy

On May 16, 2018, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed six bills, including the Federally Integrated Species Health Act (H.R. 3916).  H.R. 3916 is sponsored by Representative Ken Calvert, a Republican representing the 42nd Congressional District in California.  The bill proposes to amend the federal Endangered Species Act to vest the Secretary of Interior with Endangered Species Act authority over fish species that migrate between fresh and ocean waters, such as the endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinnok salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).  ...

On Friday, May 18, 2018, agencies and organizations throughout the United States will celebrate the 13th annual Endangered Species Day, which recognizes conservation efforts that protect our nation's imperiled species and their habitats.  Events are scheduled throughout the country to celebrate our biodiversity and efforts to conserve that diversity.

Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) finalized its reclassification of the Tobusch fishhook cactus (Sclerocactus brevihamatus ssp. tobuschii), a small cactus found in Texas, downlisting the species from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

As previously reported here, the Service concluded that downlisting the cactus was warranted given an increase in the number of observed individuals. While only 200 cactuses were known when the species was listed as endangered in 1979, the Service now estimates there are more than 3,300 ...

As we reported here, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of the petition for writ of certiorari in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, No. 17-71, on January 22, 2018.  Petitioners challenge a 2-1 panel decision issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming a rule issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), 77 Fed. Reg. 35118 (June 12, 2012), that designated critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) and included areas within the critical habitat that the frog does not and could not inhabit. Specifically, the ...

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Principal Deputy Director Greg Sheehan recently issued a guidance memorandum to USFWS’ Regional Directors to clarify the appropriate trigger for an incidental take permit (ITP) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  While this guidance was directed internally to USFWS staff to aid in determination of whether project-related habitat modification is likely to result in take of a listed species, it also serves as a tool for project proponents to determine whether to seek an ITP and whether to cover a given species in that ITP.

The guidance ...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced a 90-day comment period on proposed amendments to six Resource Management Plans (RMPs) and associated draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEISs) designed to protect the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).  In 2015, BLM finalized RMPs that addressed greater sage grouse conservation efforts across ten states.  The six RMPs that are the subject of this latest comment period address restrictions on energy development and other activities in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Northern California, Oregon, Wyoming and Utah

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a final rule removing the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris curasoae yerbabuenae) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife due to recovery.  According to FWS, threats to the bat have been eliminated or reduced and populations are healthy and stable such that the species is no longer endangered or threatened with endangerment under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  It is the first bat species delisted from the ESA due to recovery.

When the bat was first listed in 1988, fewer than 1,000 bats at only 14 known roosts were ...

On April 19, 2018, the California Fish and Game Commission voted 4-0 to list the tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) as a threatened species. A statewide survey conducted in 2017 estimated the California population of the species to be over 175,000 birds. The species is broadly distributed in California, occurring in roughly 40 counties, though the bulk of the population resides in the Central Valley.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned for the emergency listing of the species in 2015, based on a dramatic decline in population estimates from 2008 to 2011 and again ...

On April 17, 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) reached a negative 90-day finding on a petition to remove the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius preblei) from the List of Threatened and Endangered Species.  The Service’s finding was in response to a petition to delist the mouse filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation in 2017.  The Service concluded that the petition presented no new information indicating that delisting the mouse is warranted.

The Service rejected the petition’s taxonomic argument that the mouse is not a distinct subspecies that ...

On April 11, 2018, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed into law H.B. 2238, which amended the state’s administrative procedure laws to provide that courts are not required to defer to an agency’s legal interpretation in lawsuits over administrative decisions. The amendment effectively eliminated Chevron deference, which requires courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute.

The legal doctrine—named for the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resource Defense Counsel, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-844 ...