Environmental advocacy groups are expressing relief that changes in the petition process for the Endangered Species Act did not greatly increase the obligation for research by petitioners seeking protections for plants and animals. The final version of the rule, published Sept. 27 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, limited each petition to one species, ending the multispecies petitions that have troubled many critics of the process. That was an unnecessary change, but at least it was not the "enormous burden" of research that would have been imposed by the proposed version of the rule, said Rebecca Riley, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The first proposed version of the rule would have required petitioners to pull together information from state agencies to provide a more extensive factual basis for federal agency review. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the oceans administration backed off on that proposal, saying it would require more information than necessary for an initial 90-day review of a petition. The agencies also backed off because it would have conflicted with the Paperwork Reduction Act, said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
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