Law360, New York (September 19, 2013, 6:22 PM ET) -- The National Marine Fisheries Service is backing away from a proposed rule listing 68 species of corals as endangered, saying Thursday that it needs to collect additional information and re-evaluate the controversial action that was based on future climate threats.
Extending the deadline for the final listing decision for an additional six month will allow the regulator to better assess the best scientific and commercial data available, the agency said in a Federal Register notice.
“Based on comments received during the public comment period, we find that substantial disagreement exists regarding the sufficiency and accuracy of the data and analyses relevant to the 68 proposed listing determinations,” the notice said.
The NMFS published the proposal in December in response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity asking the government to list 83 species of reef-building corals as threatened or endangered. The agency decided that 66 of them qualified for endangered status, and found that another two should be bumped up from threatened to endangered.
The decision caught the attention of senior GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wrote a letter to the NMFS saying that the listings unjustifiably relied on global climate change as the primary threat to the corals.
“Proposing to list dozens of species covering millions of ocean miles based on perceived future harms with dubious scientific justification simply does not pass the straight face test,” the letter said.
If approved, the proposal would set a dangerous precedent of forcing through burdensome regulation “under the guise of addressing climate change,” the lawmakers said.
The NMFS said it received numerous additional comments on the sufficiency or accuracy of the available data used to support the rule, questioning findings on coral ability to adapt to ocean warming and acidification and the reliability of future modeling and predictions of climate change.
“Comments highlighted the complexities and uncertainties in information used to determine threat impacts and extinction risks to individual, widely distributed coral species in light of spatial and temporal variability of the climate related threats,” the notice said.
The Center for Biological Diversity released a statement Thursday expressing hope that the government will still finalize the rule, arguing that it will provide much needed protections against pollution, dredging and coastal construction.
Threatened reefs are declining rapidly, the group said, with coral cover in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific falling from 50 percent in the 1970s to current levels of 10 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
“Unfortunately, the plain truth is that coral reefs are on a rapid path toward extinction and we need to move powerfully and fast to save them,” Center for Biological Diversity oceans director Miyoko Saka****a said in a statement Thursday. “These corals desperately need the safety net that only the Endangered Species Act can provide.”
The proposal triggered a one-year deadline for the agency to act. With the sixth-month extension, the NMFS is now not required to make a final determination on the proposed listings until June 2014.
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