costs of protecting a species has nothing to do with whether it is endangered or threatened.
However, the federal government has used this science-only requirement as an excuse to prohibit the identification of the benefits and costs of listing a species.
Based on the final regulations, the federal government would still make listing decisions without considering costs, but would start to identify and communicate the impacts of these listing decisions.
There is nothing novel about informing the public about cost data that isn’t used in agency decision-making. This is exactly what the Environmental Protection Agency does when designating the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
When legislators and the public know what the actual costs and benefits are for conserving species, they can better understand the Endangered Species Act and how existing law might be changed to achieve desired policy outcomes.
3. Stopping critical habitat designations that don’t help to conserve species.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the federal government designates critical habitat for listed species, which may include areas that are not occupied by the species. These unoccupied areas, however, must be essential to the conservation of the species.
The new final regulations would help to ensure any unoccupied areas are truly essential, and therefore help to prevent extreme situations, such as what happened in Louisiana.
In that case, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined that 1,544 acres of land in Louisiana was “critical habitat” for an endangered species known as the dusky gopher frog. This was despite the fact the dusky gopher frog has not been seen in Louisiana in over 50 years and couldn’t even survive on the property.
As the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Mark Miller, who represented the property owners in the case, recently stated, “The feds may as well have labeled this Louisiana property critical habitat for a polar bear. It would have done just as much good.”
The administration’s new final regulations are designed to better protect species. They may pose a problem for those who are more interested in blocking development than the welfare of threatened and endangered species. For those though who want to improve recovery efforts, these regulations are an important step forward.