NPR

Biden administration restores threatened species protections dropped by Trump

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration on Thursday restored rules to protect imperiled plants and animals that had been rolled back under former President Donald Trump.

Among the changes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for species newly classified as threatened. That means officials won't have to craft time-intensive plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, in the Rocky Mountains, alligator snapping turtles in the southeastern U.S. and spotted owls in California.

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