The White House is threatening the integrity of the federal Endangered Species Act by proposing to remove the regulatory definition of “harm.”
As part of its ongoing campaign attacking long-standing U.S. environmental laws and policies, the White House is threatening a critical underpinning of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) by proposing to remove the regulatory definition of “harm,” which is central to prohibiting activity that could impair the habitat of protected species under the ESA.
An important tool utilized by WaterWatch to protect the endangered species that call Oregon’s rivers, streams, and wetlands home, the ESA has helped influence water management throughout Oregon, including in the Columbia, Willamette, Rogue, Umpqua, Deschutes, and Klamath river basins.
Removing the “harm” definition from the ESA would drastically undermine the law’s habitat conservation reach — and could lead to devastating effects for fish and wildlife.
Loss of the Endangered Species Act’s “harm” definition would also open the door for developers and industry to destroy the habitat of endangered species with increased logging, mining, and other resource extraction that could lead to the extinction of the species the ESA was originally intended to prevent when it was signed into law in 1973.
As Oregonians and environmental advocates, we cannot allow this to occur.
Please take a moment today — as in now, at this moment — to submit your remarks and speak up for the preservation of the Endangered Species Act, and oppose the proposed “harm” rule rescission. Tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to reject this unwarranted, unnecessary rule change proposal. Comments are due this Monday, May 19th!
Thank you for your support of our basic, bedrock environmental laws.
