BILLINGS, Mont. – The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a deal with environmentalists to work through a backlog of more than 250 imperiled animals and plants and decide which merit greater protections.
Most would likely be proposed for threatened or endangered status if a federal judge approves the agreement, Interior Department officials said. The species to be reviewed range from the greater sage grouse and Canada lynx, to 110 plants and 38 kinds of mollusks.
That could lay the groundwork for a spate of future conflicts over industrial development, water management and residential expansion wherever humans are encroaching into the natural world.
Conservation groups and government agencies in some cases already are working to prevent such disputes, hoping to avoid a repeat of the bitter fights that emerged over protections for the northern spotted owl, gray wolf and snail darter.
Some of the plants and animals in the announcement were first proposed for protection soon after the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Instead, they languished for decades on a list of “candidate species” that the government could not afford to help.
Final decisions would be due by September 2016. It would settle pending litigation between the Interior Department and Denver-based WildEarth Guardians.
WildEarth
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