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The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations. The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute. Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984. It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress...

Decades-long mantras about “vanishing habitat” and ever-growing threats to wildlife have long been used to justify locking up more land through federal ownership or other restrictive measures. The perfect example is the Biden administration’s proposal to conserve 30% of the nation by 2030—aka “30 by 30.” Exactly what the administration envisions is ambiguous, as it hasn’t defined words like “conserve” and “protect,” although insiders at the Department of the Interior say the 30% language is being incorporated into many Interior Department documents.

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) -Florida Fish and Wildlife officers have arrested a Collier County man for five misdemeanor charges related to violations against endangered or threatened species. Officials say the incident occurred on Jan 9, on Marco Island. Officers say Renardo Stewart accelerated and ran a golf cart through a flock of black skimmers resting on the beach. Marco Island Police Department detained Stewart and he admitted to driving the golf cart through the flock of birds. The black skimmer is protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It is also protected as State Threatened by Florida’s Endangered and Threatened...

Finally, some good news.In very, very good news for seahorses, Sydney Harbour, and Sydneysiders, for the first time in recorded history, scientists have discovered an endangered seahorse species living quietly beneath the Opera House. In 2019, the Opera House installed a series of artificial modular reefs on the underside of their building, with scientists hoping to increase marine biodiversity across the entirety of Sydney Harbour. In early August, marine scientists inspected the living artificial reefs for the first time in a year, and happened across a pretty remarkable discovery: an endangered White’s Seahorse, a tiny species that generally lives closer...

The Endangered Species Act, first enacted by Congress in 1973, has since become a poster child for bureaucratic ineptitude. By 2021 it had fully redeemed from the impending extinction only 3% of the hundreds of endangered species initially added to the list. Our national symbol, the again flourishing bald eagle, is an outstanding exception. The birds are commonly seen soaring above our rivers and lakes wherever the fishing is good. But whooping cranes are holding onto existence by the skin of their beaks, despite heroic efforts to restore the one-time migrating flocks at a secreted refuge near Baraboo, WI. Primary...

BILLINGS, Mont. -- President Joe Biden's administration announced Tuesday plans to cancel two environmental rollbacks under former President Donald Trump that limited habitat protections for imperiled plants and wildlife. The proposal to drop the two Trump-era rules by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service is part of a broad effort by the Biden administration to undo regulations that Democrats and wildlife advocates say favored industry over the environment.... ...The rule changes under Trump were finalized during his last weeks in office, meaning they've had little time to make a significant impact... One allows the government...

Chinese officials have announced that giant pandas are no longer endangered after efforts to help drive up their population, according to multiple reports. Cui Shuhong, head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said Wednesday that massive conservation efforts have allowed the population size of the pandas to reach more than 1,800, NBC and CNN reported. "China has established a relatively complete nature reserves system," Cui said, according to CNN. "Large areas of natural ecosystems have been systematically and completely protected, and wildlife habitats have been effectively improved." The expert added that populations of some other endangered species, like Siberian...

The idiotic and expensive plans to force electric vehicles down the throats of drivers has run into an obstacle created by an law that environmentalists demanded. You can’t have electric vehicles without lithium ion batteries, and you can’t build all those car batteries without a supply of lithium, which some warn will be inadequate soon.AP reports:An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.The agency outlined its intention to propose listing Tiehm’s...

Are we about to see an expansion of the authority or impact of the Endangered Species Act? If so, how will this occur? First let’s take a look at how we got where we are today. In the early history of our country, the states were sovereign over wildlife within their borders. As late as 1896 the Supreme Court held that states have the, “undoubted authority to control the taking and use of that which belonged to no one in particular but was common to all.” (Geer v. Connecticut). Since then we have witnessed the steady passing of this...

Contact: (916) 210-6000, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the California Environmental Protection Agency today filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for failing to protect endangered fish species from federal water export operations.The lawsuit asserts that biological opinions prepared by federal agencies under the Endangered Species Act to direct water project operations lack safeguards for protected species and their habitat in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds, including the Bay-Delta. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit requests that the court declare the Trump...

Owls, more owls and federal land grabbers Owls In response to a 2013 lawsuit by WildEarth Guardians on behalf of the Mexican spotted owl, a federal judge in Arizona has ordered a halt to timber operations on all New Mexico forests and one forest in Arizona (about 12 million acres). WildEarth Guardians Executive Director John Horning said, “With this decision, the agencies will finally be held accountable for ensuring that all forest management practices help, not hinder, owl recovery.” The attorney for the organization on this case explained that “certain timber projects will be paused in light of the...

Two environmental groups are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in an effort to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard, also known as the sand dune lizard, under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Defenders of Wildlife filed a lawsuit in federal district court on Tuesday. The small lizard only lives in southeast New Mexico and west Texas. It thrives in sand dunes and shrubs called shinnery oaks. In May 2018, the groups asked Fish and Wildlife to list the species as threatened or endangered. The lawsuit argues the agency should have responded within 90...

The U.S. Forest Service lifted the suspension of sales of fuelwood permits to collect firewood in New Mexico’s five national forests Tuesday after a U.S. District Judge in Arizona modified his original order banning all timber management in the state. The legal dispute centered on protecting a species of spotted owl, which had stopped all timber management — including fuelwood collection — which is critical to many families who use wood to heat their homes and for tribal activities. Other timber management activities, such as timber sales, forest thinning and prescribed burns, were excluded from the judge’s new ruling....

Here is some background:Carson National Forest to Provide the 2019 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree This year’s U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree will be coming from New Mexico. The tree will be displayed on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., with a public tree-lighting ceremony in early December. The 2019 tree will be cut from the Questa Ranger District on the Carson National Forest. Seventy smaller companion trees will also be sent to our nation’s capital to decorate government buildings and public spaces...  The FS has sponsored events around NM to have ornaments made for the tree....

Several environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over recent changes to the Endangered Species Act that they say threaten wildlife. Earthjustice filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California The Department of the Interior announced rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act on Aug. 12. The changes remove a blanket rule that gave newly-listed threatened species the same protections as endangered species. As part of the rule changes, agencies must now consider economic impact when listing a species or designating critical habitat. Wednesday’s lawsuit alleges the Interior Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...

The Trump administration is applying new regulations to protect endangered species, rolling back some requirements [in order] to ground the policy in scientific and economic factors, the Interior Department announced Monday. The regulations, based on the 1973 Endangered Species Act, will “increase transparency and effectiveness and bring the administration of the Act into the 21st century,” the agency said. The rules won’t extend the same protections to threatened species as are applied to those already on the endangered list. Nor will they look as far into the future to project what species face extinction. The changes likely will draw litigation...

Will about a million species go extinct in the next few years if we don’t act to curb climate change?An assessment report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) says so.The mainstream media reacted with the credence a devout religious person would give to a sacred text. “1 Million Species Are Threatened with Extinction. And Humans are to Blame” was a typical headline.But the claim was foolish. Why?Like the periodic assessment reports on climate change from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the report’s primary objective seems to be to blame humans for...

The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire. The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80. But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who...

Twitter post in article. The Trump administration announced it will propose a rule to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protections, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson confirmed in a statement to The Hill. Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the decision during the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Denver, the spokesperson said. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will soon propose a rule to delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states and return management of the species to the states and tribes," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Recovery of the gray...

AUSTIN, Texas— The Center for Biological Diversity and Save Our Springs Alliance today filed a notice of intent to sue the Texas Department of Transportation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over an Austin highway construction project’s threats to the federally endangered Austin blind and Barton Springs salamanders. The conservation groups recently learned that the MoPac Intersections Project has exposed at least 21 underground caves, sink holes and other karst features that provide habitat for the endangered salamanders. There is a high risk that construction will pollute the two species’ habitat by introducing silt and pollutants to the subsurface. The...