ENDANGERED SPECIES: Obama admin proposes rule to speed economic studies of critical habitat
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
E&E PM: Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Interior and Commerce departments today proposed a rule designed to simplify the designation of new critical habitat by offering an earlier assessment of economic impacts.
The new Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule follows a presidential memorandum in February requiring agencies to release critical habitat proposals and economic analyses concurrently, rather than waiting weeks or months to assess economic impacts.
"By improving the clarity and consistency of our regulations, we can continue to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the ESA," FWS Director Dan Ashe said.
The rule would codify existing practice at NOAA, which already issues draft economic analyses concurrent with proposed critical habitat designations.
For FWS, the change would trim the public comment period from 90 days to 60 days by eliminating the need to open a separate comment period for economic analyses, the agency said.
The proposal this spring drew support from both developers and environmentalists, though experts said the proposal would do little to resolve decades of contention over how the government weighs the costs and benefits of protecting endangered species (Greenwire, March 7).
Federal officials can exclude areas from final protection if the costs of protecting habitat would outweigh the benefits, as long as the exclusion would not cause extinction of a species. In contrast, economic factors may not be considered when deciding whether to list a species as endangered or threatened.
Separately, FWS is also working on a new definition of what it means to destroy or harm critical habitat and several other regulatory revisions to ESA -- part of a response to President Obama's directive last year for all federal agencies to weed out unnecessary and burdensome regulations (Greenwire, Jan. 31).
The newly proposed rule will now be available for public comment for 60 days.
