Bipartisan House legislation would block the Trump administration’s move to undo habitat protections for imperiled species.
H.R. 9901, the Safeguarding Endangered Species Act, from Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), would nullify this month’s final rule that redefined “harm” under the Endangered Species Act.
The new interpretation from the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries excludes destruction of habitat from the law’s purview of explicit prohibitions. That change shifts how the Interior Department agencies have interpreted the bedrock environmental law for half a century.
“For more than fifty years, our nation’s protections have reflected a basic legal, scientific, and commonsense truth: when habitat destruction actually kills or injures protected wildlife, that destruction is harm,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
