Interior Secretary Doug Burgum yesterday issued a series of secretarial orders that are an attack on the Endangered Species Act, migratory bird protections and federal lands and waters.
“This suite of secretarial orders is exactly what we feared was coming,” said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations for Defenders of Wildlife. “These are blatant and brazen efforts to undermine the Endangered Species Act and will further put at risk migratory birds and already imperiled wildlife, from warblers to greater sage grouse, and unnecessarily expand drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other critical habitats. These orders are reckless and issued at a time that America is not experiencing an energy emergency, but rather a crisis of species and habitat loss.”
Within these orders, the secretary directs the Department of the Interior to eliminate regulations critical to safeguarding endangered and imperiled species, reopen Alaskan wilderness to drilling and mining activity, and open the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling for oil, gas and minerals, among other directives.
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