In a major win for wildlife conservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced it will pause use of the controversial “blanket 4(d) rule” and initiate steps to rescind it over the next 14 months—a key objective of a lawsuit filed last year by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF).
PERC, RMEF, and the agency have jointly requested a stay of the pending litigation to allow the Service time to rescind the blanket rule that illegally and irrationally treats endangered and threatened species the same, resulting in poor species recovery rates.
Once the blanket rule is rescinded, the Service would issue regulations tailored to the unique needs of every threatened species, informed by science and the incentives needed for recovery. In the interim, the agency has committed to issuing tailored rules for each species listed as threatened rather than apply the blanket 4(d) rule.
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