(FiveNation.com)- Last Wednesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it had revoked the last remaining Trump-era rule change to the Endangered Species Act, thereby allowing the Department of Interior to once again meddle in the affairs of private landowners.
Under the Trump-era rule, the Fish and Wildlife Service was required to accept the conclusions of private landowners that creating a protected habitat on their land would cause economic hardship.
But with that rule reversed, private landowners will no longer be able to make that determination. Instead, the unelected bureaucracy at the Department of the Interior will get to decide whether or not private landowners will face economic hardship.
In short, the Constitutional right to property is once again being undermined by the permanent, unelected bureaucracy in Washington.
Hurray for protecting our “norms!”
Naturally, environmental groups who don’t give a damn about property rights applauded the administration’s decision.
Andrew Carter from Defenders of Wildlife praised the decision in a statement, saying the Biden administration is taking necessary steps toward “restoring the Endangered Species Act protections,” adding “our health and well-being depends on our nation’s rich biodiversity.”
We’ll keep that in mind when our economy collapses and we’re all living in mud huts with no heat or electricity.
Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity said he was grateful to the Biden administration for repealing the last Trump-era rule, saying “some semblance of common sense has been restored.”
Last Wednesday’s announcement comes just weeks after a federal judge vacated another Trump rule on the Endangered Species Act that said protections applied to endangered species do not apply to species considered threatened or likely to become endangered.
Last month, the Biden administration revoked another Trump-era rule that imposed stricter constraints on what areas could be qualified as critical habitats. The Trump rule limited critical habitats to areas that currently support endangered species and omitted areas that might later down the road support endangered species.
