The Trump administration can now tinker with plans for the Miami cave crayfish and several other vulnerable species after withdrawing critical habitat proposals from White House review.
With every federal agency undergoing a regulatory makeover, the Fish and Wildlife Service in the days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration withdrew three distinct Endangered Species Act-related actions from the White House in-basket.
Their future is now uncertain, along with myriad other federal agency rule proposals that under the Biden administration had reached the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The powerful gatekeeper known as OIRA is part of the Office of Management and Budget.
“It is not unusual for pending rules to be withdrawn temporarily when there is a change in administration, but time will tell if the Trump administration abuses the OIRA review process to hamstring the designation of critical habitat for all threatened and endangered species that are otherwise legally entitled to such protections under the Endangered Species Act,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said Friday.
