With the administration of U.S. Donald Trump moving quickly to roll back endangered species protections, some U.S. lawmakers have introduced a bill to support and improve species recovery efforts.
“Protecting the thousands of endangered species and strengthening recovery efforts must be a bipartisan cause – it is a shared responsibility that takes all of us. My new legislation with Senator [Pete] Ricketts [R-Nebraska] updates the Endangered Species Act to ensure policies that will help species on the verge of extinction survive and recover are implemented efficiently, based on science, and in partnership with private landowners and states. We must all do our part to leave the world a better place than we found it,” U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) said in a release.
If passed, the Improving Species Recovery Act would incentivize voluntary conservation efforts and reward states and private landowners for taking early steps to protect threatened species and support their recovery. The bill would establish standards for pre-listing conservation efforts and create a path for how voluntary efforts will influence the government’s decisions in listing and delisting species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The bill would also introduce “conservation milestones” that offer regulatory flexibility and priority access to funding once they’re reached. Other measures in the bill include new “baseline statuses” for species at the time of their listing and improving interagency consultations and reviews with AI and other digital tools.
Together, the lawmakers said the Improving Species Recovery Act will enable faster species recovery and stronger stakeholder collaboration while reducing permitting bottlenecks, confusion, and litigation.
“Fifty-three years ago, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act to recover threatened and endangered species. Instead, it has created regulatory barriers that make recovery efforts more difficult. The Improving Species Recovery Act would cut burdensome red tape and modernize the recovery process. It would empower local experts with the resources and certainty they need to de-list species. As Governor, I led boots-on-the-ground efforts to protect our wildlife in Nebraska. This bill would ensure states and private landowners can continue that work more efficiently and effectively,” Senator Ricketts said in a release.
The bill’s introduction comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to strip back decades-old protections for threatened species under the ESA. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of the Interior rescinded the definition of “harm” under the ESA to exclude critical habitat protections. Separately, a leaked memo showed the government’s plan to no longer punish accidental take of endangered species.
“The proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act will remove the core safeguards that have prevented the extinction of 99 percent of species protected under the act,” Oceana Vice President Beth Lowell said in a statement. “Federally permitted activities that incidentally injure and kill endangered species currently need to take into account their unintended impacts on wildlife, including nesting beaches for sea turtles or North Atlantic [right whale] mother and calf pairs as they swim to their feeding grounds. These changes upend the Endangered Species Act’s balance of economic activity and needed protections, pushing species to the brink of extinction.”
