In an apparent attempt to head-off legislative changes to the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) that have been threatened by Congressional Republicans, President Obama unveiled a suite of proposed changed to the ESA species listing process.   These changes, contained in a proposed rule that was announced on May 19, are largely focused on making it more difficult to file petitions to list species and designate critical habitat.

Section 4 of the ESA allows “any person” to petition the federal government (either the Fish and Wildlife Service for terrestrial species, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for aquatic species) to list the species as threatened or endangered. This provision has resulted in a slew of petitions filed by individuals and environmental groups, often seeking the listing of numerous species through a single petition. The FWS and NOAA, which are required by ESA Section 4 to respond to petitions within 90 days, have been unable to keep up with the petitions. The result has been numerous pieces of multi-district litigation and settlement agreements requiring that FWS and NOAA respond to listing petitions within specified timeframes.

Under the proposed rule, listing petitions would be limited to one species at a time, preventing the massive omnibus petitions that gave rise to the multi-district litigation settlements. The rule would also require that parties submitting petitions to list species provide copies of the petitions to state fish and game agencies at least 30 days before they are submitted to FWS or NOAA. If a state wishes to submit comments on the accuracy or completeness of the petition, the petition is required to submit the state’s comments to the FWS or NOAA along with the petition.  The proposed rule also requires that specific information on the species be provided with the petition, including disclosure of any data that would not support listing of the species.  The petitions would also have to include:

•Literature citations that are specific enough for the agencies to find the information, including by page and chapter.

•Electronic or hard copies of any supporting materials, such as publications, maps, reports and letters cited in the petition, or valid links to public websites where the information can be found.

•Information demonstrating that the petitioned wildlife meets ESA’s definition of a “species.”

•Information on current population status and trends and estimates of current population sizes and distributions, both in captivity and the wild, if available.

The proposed rule can be found at:  http://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2015/proposed-revised-petition-regulations.pdf