2019 Endangered Species Act Regulatory Revisions

• Date: 01 November 2019

11-2019 NEWS & ANALYSIS 49 ELR 10989

DIALOGUE

2019 Endangered Species Act

Regulatory Revisions

Summary

e U.S. Department of the Interior and National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently

nalized comprehensive changes in how the Endan-

gered Species Act (ESA) is implemented. ese changes

address the species listing process, critical habitat des-

ignations, protections for threatened species, and the

§7 consultation process. On August 23, 2019, the

Environmental Law Institute hosted an expert panel

that highlighted reactions to the changes and explored

how they will be implemented, whom they will aect,

their impact on state and local agencies, and how they

will impact species conservation. Below, we present a

transcript of the discussion, which has been edited for

style, clarity, and space considerations.

Hannah Keating is Manager of Educational Programs

at the Environmental Law Institute.

Ya-Wei (Jake) Li (moderator) is Di rector for

Biodiversity at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center.

Ramona McGee is a Sta Attorney at the Southern

Environmenta l Law Center.

Peg Romanik is the Associate Solicitor, Division of Parks

and Wildlife, in the Oce of the Solicitor of the U.S.

Department of the Interior.

Anna Seidman is Director of Lega l Advocacy and

International A airs at Safa ri Club International.

Greg Sheeha n is Vice President of Asset Management

at Blue Diamond Capital and former Principal Deputy

Director at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Jonathan Wood is a Research Fellow at the Property and

Environment Research Center and a Senior Attorney at

Pacic Legal Found ation.

Hannah Keating: On August 12, the U.S. Department

of the Interior (DOI) and the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  nalized regula-

tory changes to how the Endangered Species Act (ESA)1

is implemented.2 While other changes have been made in

recent years to ESA regulat ions,3 t hese new changes are the

most signicant in more than t wo decades.

I would like to take a moment to introduce our outstand-

ing moderator. Jake Li is the director for biodiversity at the

Environmental Policy Innovation Center. Previously, he

represented regulatory industries as a n environmental law-

yer, and then grew the endangered species policy program

at Defenders of Wildlife. After a decade t hat spans both

sides of the table, he is now largely focused on engaging

the public and private sectors in saving endangered species.

Jake Li: I’m delighted to be a part of this expert panel.

We will present a wide range of perspectives on the ESA

revisions. I think that wide-range perspective is especially

important because most of the news coverage t hat I’ve

seen on the regulations has focused on just a few of the

controversia l changes while overlooking the other more

complex, but probably equally important, changes. Even

for the handful of real ly controversial changes, you’ll hear

both sides of the story today, which we hope will give you

a more informed basis to think about the implications of

these policies.

Before we turn to our rst panelist, I wa nt to spend a

few minutes providing an overview of the regulations and

my own assessment of them so that you can familiarize

yourself with what the rest of the speakers will tal k about.

At the highest level, the regulatory changes addressed

three parts of the ESA. e rst is that we have rules that

tailor protections for species listed as threatened. We call

1. 16 U.S.C. §§1531-1544, ELR S. ESA §§2-18.

2. Press Release, Trump Administration Improves the Implementing Regula-

tions of the Endangered Species Act (Aug. 12, 2019).

3. See Environmental Law Institute, Breaking News: Proposed USFWS En-

dangered Species Act Regulations, July 31, 2018, https://www.eli.org/events/

breaking-news-proposed-usfws-endangered-species-act-regulations.

Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.