WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed a rule Friday that would end a practice in which some endangered species were classified differently in neighboring states.
The new policy would clarify that a plant or animal could be listed as threatened or endangered if threats occur in a “significant portion of its range,” even if the threat crosses state lines and does not apply in the species’ entire range.
The draft rule would replace a Bush-era policy that allowed animals such as the gray wolf and Preble’s meadow jumping mouse to be classified differently in neighboring states. The 2007 policy was withdrawn last spring after two federal courts rejected it.
In the case of gray wolves, the government in 2009 sought to lift protections for the predators in Idaho and Montana but leave them in place in Wyoming, where a state law allowed the predators to be shot on sight in most of the state.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy later reinstated protections across the region, saying the agency could not declare wolves recovered in two states when part of the same population remained imperiled in Wyoming.
Molloy, in rejecting the Bush rule, said it was “at its heart a political solution that does not comply with the ESA,” referring to the Endangered Species Act.
The new rule would help clarify which species are eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act and allow officials to act sooner to conserve declining species, said Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe.
The rule applies to the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, which administer the endangered-species law.
