The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed revisions to its Mitigation Policy on March 8, 2016. This policy was last updated in 1981.  The Policy guides FWS on appropriate mitigation for adverse impacts of proposed actions on fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats.   FWS initiated the revisions to the Policy to reflect changes in conservation challenges and practices since 1981, including accelerating loss of habitats, effects of climate change, and advances in conservation science.   The proposed revisions aim to apply a landscape-scale approach to achieve a net gain in conservation outcomes, or at a minimum, no net loss of resources and their values, services, and functions resulting from proposed actions.  The net gain goal is consistent with a November 2015 Presidential Memorandum on Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Private Investment, which requires that all federal mitigation policies clearly set forth a net benefit goal or, at a minimum, a no net loss goal for natural resources, wherever doing so is allowed by existing statutory authority and is consistent with agency mission and established natural resource objectives.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have finalized two joint rule modifications and one joint policy change regarding the Services’ interpretations of “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently announced a draft methodology for prioritizing species status reviews and 12-month findings for species listings under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The proposed revisions are meant to aid FWS in addressing the backlog of over 500 unresolved status reviews, and focus resources on the highest-priority status reviews.  FWS will classify species into “priority bins” as follows:

On January 14, 2016, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule exempting certain types of “take” of northern long-eared bats from the requirement to obtain an incidental take permit, pursuant to Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act.  In the final rule, the Service has made all incidental (as opposed to purposeful) take exempt from the permitting requirement unless it is caused by tree removal (a) that occurs within a 0.25 mile buffer around known occupied northern long-eared bat hibernacula or (b) that cuts or destroys known occupied maternity roost trees, or any other trees within a 150-foot (45-m) radius around the maternity roost tree, during the pup season (June 1 through July 31).  The obligation to obtain an incidental take permit for tree removal in the vicinity of occupied habitat only applies in an area designated as the “white nose syndrome buffer zone,” the area of the country in which the bats have been affected by the incurable disease white nose syndrome (“WNS”).  As with the provisional 4(d) rule released last April, all incidental take outside of the WNS buffer zone is exempt.

Each year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) publishes its annual Candidate Notice of Review (CNOR) in the Federal Register.  The 2015 CNOR is available here, and includes the candidate species of plants and animals that FWS has deemed eligible for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but which have not yet been listed due to higher priority listings.  The 18 plants and 42 animals on the 2015 notice are the fewest number of candidate species listed since FWS began the list in 1975. This is due, in part, to litigation settlements between FWS and the Center for the Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians which mandated that FWS expedite their listing decisions and thereby reduce the number of candidate species on the CNOR.