Thanks for the tag, I definitely want to jump in here because the most helpful thing any individual can do is write your own comment.
I’m going to give you a little bit of information about the process that’s happening here, why it’s happening, and how you can best contribute to protecting the Endangered Species Act. You can skip it by scrolling to the red text, but you’ll be best set up to comment and help if you know some things about what’s happening first, so please stick with me. I promise to be as simple and jargon free as possible.
First, and to catch people's attention as they scroll, here's two red wolf sisters: a species the ESA actively preserving. This is who we're doing this for.
To clarify one thing: they’re not trying to totally repeal the ESA, the entire law, they’re looking to roll back regulations implementing it/enforcing it to what was being used in 2019. This is still bad! Very bad! But a thing that’s important when dealing with legislation/regulation is precision in the language we use.
Okay, so here’s what you need to know. This is part of what is known as the “notice-and-comment” rule making process, which is federally mandated. This happens with the implementation of regulations to enact new laws, or changes to the interpretation of laws. Laws like the ESA, once passed, are delegated to various federal agencies and departments to enact and make happen, and they do that by deciding what regulations need to exist to fulfill the text and intent of the law. This change to the ESA is happening because one of the earliest executive orders from this administration “directed all departments and agencies to immediately review agency actions to identify those actions that potentially impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider suspending, revising, or rescinding agency actions identified as unduly burdensome that conflict with this national objective.” So, as @sweetfirebird said, literally go figure out what laws and regs and protections they can interpret differently, put on hold, or trash for the energy sector. Fucking gross.
This “notice-and-comment” process is the process with which all these federal agencies go about exploring changing regulations. It’s a formal process that is specifically designed to allow stakeholders to have input on what happens. Good news: in the ESA, the public is literally a stakeholder! It’s written into the law that any “person” (basically an individual or a group of individuals) can sue the government for a violation of the law. This is actually historically the prime enforcement mechanism of the ESA. Which means you, as an American on tumblr reading this, have absolutely valid standing to go tell the feds to knock this shit off. And with the way the “notice-and-comment” process works, they actually have to take your argument into account. (Yes, even though we know this admin is a piece of shit and dgaf). Here’s why.
A “notice and comment” process has four major steps.
- Agency issues a notice of proposed rulemaking. That’s what you’re looking at in the first link @sweetbirdfire shared. They have to describe what the rule they want to make/change is and explain the legal authority for the rule.
- The public must be given an opportunity to participate in a written comment period. That’s what you’re being asked to do - submit a comment before the comment period is over on the 22nd.
- The agency must “consider all relevant, timely-submitted comments. If it decides to issue a final rule, the agency develops the regulatory text along with a preamble explaining the rule’s basis and responding to all significant issues raised in the comments.”
- Final rule is published.
Okay, so why did I jump to a direct quote from federal documents in the third bullet point? Because that’s the really important shit. When federal agencies move forward with rulemaking after a public comment period, they are required to consider and response to all significant issues raised. And that is why you should write your own comment if you can.
It’s really common for organizations encouraging people to leave public comment to ask people to send in form letters. It’s easy, it takes no time or real work, it shows a lot of general public support on the issue, and they can quote the comment numbers when they’re lobbying.
But! What I’ve been told by serious professional people who work with regulatory agencies is that all those form letters only have the functional weight of a single comment during the “notice-and-comment” process. If 100 people only bring up the same significant set of issues, that requires far less time and work for the agency to respond to than even 20 people writing in with their individual concerns. I’ve seen follow-ups on comment periods where they actually count how many people raised issues on a single topic or concern - but the form letters only counted as one “comment” because they were the exact same thing.
And while the political agency head probably wants to fast-track this process of changing the regs to let the feds tear up whatever the fuck they want, a “notice-and-comment period” is a really good way to gum up those gears. There are still people in lower-level positions who do this daily work and I expect that they’re opposed to this and will go through the whole process like they’re been trained to. Under normal administrations, an overwhelming number of concerns raised during comment periods have stalled the creation/change of specific regulations for a decade. This is a process that works best when as many people as possible participate, and it’s detrimental to our interests as invested members of the public that that isn’t more widely known or the process understood.
So! What does that mean you should do here?
Write your own comment if you have the time/spoons.
Literally, write it in your own words, rather than using the form letters provided. If you make it a “different comment” it has to be considered separately and your concerns on the topic will be given more weight. Even if you just stick to the topics the Oregon Zoo offered: to be clear, they’re really good ones.
But, you’ll have even more impact if you can tie it to specific concerns for you. It takes a little more work so I don’t expect everyone to do this, but if you have some specialized or local knowledge that can be relevant, this is a great time to drop that in. Tie the concern to endangered or threatened species in your specific community, or an ecosystem that you know companies might want to pillage.
Your comment doesn’t have to be super well written or perfectly edited. It can be in language about as casual as you’d use in a tumblr post (with punctuation, though). This isn’t something you’re turning in for a grade - it’s raising your hand to say hey, I object! You’re not a major advocacy group or professional org, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to tell them how you feel. That being said. Public comments are public record. You can submit them anonymously but don’t include identifying information.
Here’s a link directly to the comment portal. While the site has a text box embedded in the page, you can also submit a document/file containing your comment.
Comments close at 11:59 PM EST (4:59 GMT) on December 22nd. We have less than five days to get more comments in. I’m really not kidding when I say every unique, individual comment makes an impact. Let’s do this.
