Last year’s regulation to require only incremental economic analysis of critical habitat designations was criticized by witnesses and lawmakers at a field hearing this week. The regulation allows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to take into account the cost of critical habitat designation to federal agencies, and ignore other state and local economic impacts. Meanwhile, the USFWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week proposed new regulations that would expand the evaluation of proposed projects’ impact on critical habitats and clarify the standards and procedures that federal agencies use for determining critical habitat. A policy was also proposed to give priority for exempting private land from critical habitat designation, especially private land where voluntary measures are being taken to protect species such as regional habitat conservation plans. The public has 60 days to submit comments on these proposals.
The proposed rule changing the critical habitat regulations, along with instructions for filing comments, can be accessed here.
The proposed policy implementing the private land exemptions, along with instructions for filing comments, can be accessed here.