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Trump Wants To Amend Endangered Species Act
Bill McEwen updated website photo 2024
By Bill McEwen, News Director
Published 6 years ago on
July 19, 2018

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DENVER — The Trump administration on Thursday proposed ending automatic protections for threatened animal and plant species and limiting habitat safeguards that are meant to shield recovering species from harm.
Administration officials said the new rules would advance conservation by simplifying and improving how the landmark Endangered Species Act is used.
“These rules will be very protective,” said U.S. Interior Department Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, adding that the changes also will reduce the “conflict and uncertainty” associated with many protected species.
Such conflicts have been numerous in the decades since the act’s 1973 passage, ranging from disruptions to logging to protect spotted owls to attacks on livestock that have accompanied the restoration of gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains and upper Midwest.
Wildlife advocates and Democrats said such moves would speed extinctions in the name of furthering the administration’s anti-environment agenda.
Species currently under consideration for protections are considered especially at risk, including the North American wolverine and the monarch butterfly, they said.
“It essentially turns every listing of a species into a negotiation,” said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity. “They could decide that building in a species habitat or logging in trees where birds nest doesn’t constitute harm.”

GOP Lawmakers Push For Endangered Species Act Changes, Too

The proposals come amid longstanding criticism of the Endangered Species Act by business groups and Republicans in Congress.
Republicans lawmakers are pushing legislation to enact broad changes to the Endangered Species Act, saying it hinders economic activities while doing little to restore species.

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Bill McEwen,
News Director
Bill McEwen is news director and columnist for GV Wire. He joined GV Wire in August 2017 after 37 years at The Fresno Bee. With The Bee, he served as Opinion Editor, City Hall reporter, Metro columnist, sports columnist and sports editor through the years. His work has been frequently honored by the California Newspapers Publishers Association, including authoring first-place editorials in 2015 and 2016. Bill and his wife, Karen, are proud parents of two adult sons, and they have two grandsons. You can contact Bill at 559-492-4031 or at Send an Email

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