FILE - Southern resident orcas from J Pod surface and breathe together on Aug. 15, 2019, near Lime Kiln Point off San Juan Island. (Image taken under authority of NMFS permit No. 22141)
Megan Farmer / KUOW
Washington has joined 20 other states around the country in filing two lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s changes to the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuits allege that the Trump administration is seeking to weaken the over 50-year-old act by narrowing the law’s definition of harm to habitats where endangered species live. The second lawsuit challenges two rule changes that would reduce protections for threatened species and create a new process for designating critical habitats.
“The decisions now that the administration is making to try to roll back some of those crucial protections would do harm to the very species that this law was designed to protect,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said. “It is not based on any evidence or reality, and the law has proven to be effective.”
The changes that Washington state is challenging would clear the way for more oil drilling and mining in habitats where endangered species live and make it harder for officials to declare “critical” habitats if developers and other businesses object. The changes would also eliminate protections for threatened species.
The Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving animals like the bald eagle, humpback whale and California condor from extinction.
Brown said the decision to roll back protections is “dramatically increasing the likelihood of the habitat being damaged, and that species will be harmed as a result.” For Washington state in particular, Brown mentioned that the loss of certain federal protections could be disastrous for endangered animals like the southern resident orcas and salmon.
The Trump administration has argued that the new rules bring the Endangered Species Act back to its original intent and that the current act has been abused to hurt business interests.
“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote in a statement earlier this year. “That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.”
Washington has joined states like California, New York and Oregon among others in challenging the new rules.
This lawsuit follows on the heels of a similar lawsuit filed by the Squaxin and Swinomish Indian tribes in July. The tribes’ suit argued that “habitat degradation is a primary driver of the decline of salmon stocks in the Puget Sound region.”
Sarah Mizes-Tan is a reporter with KUOW and KNKX. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.
