The Killing of The Environment
What words can possibly be added to the destructive bent of The Orange Monster? In particular, he has extended his venomous reach into the environment with disturbing rapidity. What follows must be stopped.
The Trump administration on Friday moved to open the habitats of imperiled animals to farming, drilling, mining, real estate development and other activities in what environmentalists characterized as the most severe erosion of protections for wildlife in half a century.
It did so by recasting a single word, “harm.”
For more than 50 years, the federal government has used a broader definition of harm to animals under the Endangered Species Act, a bedrock environmental law. It included any significant “modification or degradation” of habitat that kills or injures animals by impairing their ability to eat, shelter or breed.
The Supreme Court upheld this interpretation in 1995, ruling against property owners who argued that harm should only mean directly killing or injuring an endangered animal.
But on Friday, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced a final rule that rescinded this longstanding interpretation. Under the rule, destroying an endangered species’ nest or habitat would no longer be considered illegal. Read more.
