Biden administration restores threatened species protections dropped by Trump

By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration has restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back under former President Donald Trump. Among the changes announced Thursday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. The blanket protections regulation was dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law under Trump. Those changes came as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures. Energy companies, ranchers, farmers and many Republicans have long viewed the 1973 law as an impediment to development.