October 28, 2022 — The Biden administration could be done with its rewrite of Trump-era Endangered Species Act rules by May 2024, an official noted in an update for a federal judge overseeing a crucial legal challenge.
Samuel Rauch III, NOAA Fisheries’ deputy assistant administrator for regulatory affairs, stated that he had previously estimated the final ESA rule changes could be published two years after the judge rules on the lawsuit, first filed in 2019. Now, he says definitively that the final rule changes could be done by May 2024.
“Since my [earlier estimate] was filed, the Services have been further examining and clarifying an anticipated timeline for a rulemaking to propose revisions to the 2019 rules,” Rauch wrote in the administration’s most recent legal filing.