The ruling is a major win for environmental groups that challenged the EPA’s 2020 decision to transfer federal wetland permitting authority to Florida.
Since 2009 federal agencies, academics, and conservation groups have assessed the status of America’s birds in an annual “State of the Birds” report, which focuses on the habitats that species need to survive. The 2014 report finds that, while some overall improvement has occurred to wetlands, arid-land habitats—which include the deserts, sagebrush, and chaparral of the American West—continue to be degraded.
Earlier this year, Representative Doc Hastings, a powerful foe of wildlife conservation and Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, launched a horribly biased and slanted attack on the Endangered Species Act (ESA)
Forty years ago, the most important wildlife protection measure in U.S. history was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, who marked the occasion by issuing the following statement: “Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.”