TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 The Boston Globe TheNation A
mains effective in achieving its
ultimate goal — recovery of our
rarest species,” Interior Secre-
tary David Bernhardt said in a
statement. “An effectively ad-
ministered act ensures more
resources can go where they
will do the most good: on-the-
ground conservation.”
The new rules, which do not
require congressional approv-
al, are expected to take effect
next month.
The changes come just three
months after a United Nations
report warned that more than
1 million plants and animals
face extinction throughout the
world, mainly because of cli-
mate change and development.
That rate of loss is the highest
on record, the report found.
“By gutting key components
of the Endangered Species Act,
one of our country’s most suc-
cessful environmental laws, the
Trump administration is put-
ting our most imperiled species
and our vibrant local tourism
and recreation industries at
risk,” Healey said. “This was il-
legal, and this is an administra-
tion that needs to be held ac-
countable.”
She and California Attorney
General Xavier Becerra said
that 99 percent of the species
protected by the act have
avoided extinction.
“As we face the unprece-
dented threat of a climate
emergency, now is the time to
strengthen our planet’s biodi-
versity, not to destroy it,” Becer-
ra said. “By rolling back the En-
dangered Species Act, the
Trump administration would
be putting a nail in our coffin —
all for the sake of boosting the
profits of those putting these
species at risk in the first
place.”
Healey credited the act with
helping to increase piping plo-
ver populations in Massachu-
setts. When federal officials
designated the region’s plovers
as threatened in 1986, there
were just 139 breeding pairs in
Massachusetts. Today, there
are nearly 700 pairs.
Vikki Spruill, president of
the New England Aquarium,
said the act is directly responsi-
ble for “restoring whales, seals,
and sea turtles to Massachu-
setts’ coastal waters.”
“With extinction rates sky-
rocketing globally and the im-
pacts of climate change on vul-
nerable wildlife populations
unknown, we need a strong,
vigorous [Endangered Species
Act], not a weaker one,” she
said.
Other endangered species
in the region have not fared as
well. North Atlantic right
whales, which were hunted
nearly to extinction until whal-
ing was banned in the 1930s,
now number little more than
400 — down by about 20 per-
cent since 2010.
“Iconic species like the
North Atlantic right whale are
part of our heritage and de-
serve all possible protections in
the face of the many threats to
their continued existence,” said
Erica Fuller, a senior staff at-
torney at the Conservation Law
Foundation in Boston. “Any at-
tempt to gut one of the public’s
most revered statutes, especial-
ly in the face of the most recent
UN report, demonstrates a lack
of respect for both past and fu-
ture generations.”
uENDANGERED
Continued from Page A
The new rules also make it
easier for officials to remove a
species from the endangered
list and limit protections for
those considered threatened.
“The revisions finalized
with this rulemaking fit
squarely within the president’s
mandate of easing the regula-
tory burden on the American
public, without sacrificing our
species’ protection and recov-
ery goals,” Secretary of Com-
merce Wilbur Ross said in a
statement. “These changes
were subject to a robust, trans-
parent public process, during
which we received significant
public input that helped us fi-
nalize these rules.”
But conservation advocates
said the rules are more likely to
weaken protections and ease
the way for oil and gas drilling,
mining, and other develop-
ment.
“Our bedrock environmen-
tal laws are under assault,” said
Jamie Rappaport Clark, presi-
dent of Defenders of Wildlife, a
national conservation group
based in Washington, D.C.
“These rules would change the
law in a way that would make it
impossible to preserve biodi-
versity.”Others said the new rules
would unnecessarily burden
the US Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice and National Marine Fish-
eries Service, forcing them to
do irrelevant economic analy-
ses.
Factoring in the cost of sav-
ing endangered species would
likely have prevented other
species from being listed in re-
cent years, such as the red
knot, a bird that flies through
Massachusetts and will soon al-
so be listed as a threatened spe-
cies, wildlife advocates said.
They called the changes
short-sighted, noting the im-
mense value of biodiversity.
“Wildlife conservation pro-
vides billions of dollars in eco-
nomic value to states and com-
munities across the country,”
said Steve Holmer, vice presi-
dent of policy for the American
Bird Conservancy, a group also
based in Washington, D.C.
“Birds and other wildlife are an
essential part of our natural
heritage and play key roles in
maintaining healthy ecosys-
tems.”David Abel can be reached at
[email protected]. Follow him
on Twitter @davabel.JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF
Wildlife advocates contend the Endangered Species Act
helped the piping plover population recover in the state.Former short-lived White
House communications direc-
tor Anthony Scaramucci said
Monday that
President
Trump is ‘‘giv-
ing people a li-
cense to hate’’ and called on Re-
publicans to consider replacing
him on the top of the ticket
next year.
‘‘How are we all tolerating
this?’’ Scaramucci said during
an interview on CNN. ‘‘The
rhetoric is so charged and so di-
visive that we all have to just
take a step back now and say,
‘What are we doing actually?’ ’’
In an interview with The
Washington Post later Monday,
Scaramucci said he wanted to
recruit other former Trump
aides and prominent Republi-
cans to come forward with crit-
ical opinions of the president —
views he said that many had
shared with him privately.
Until recently, Scaramucci,
who was fired after serving in
the White House for 11 days in
2017, had continued to express
support for Trump even as he
increasingly spoke out on tele-
vision and Twitter about some
of the president’s rhetoric on
race and other issues.
Lastweek,Scaramuccichar-
acterized Trump’s visits to El
Paso and Dayton, Ohio, in the
aftermath of mass shootings in
the two cities as a ‘‘total catas-
trophe,’’ saying Trump ap-
peared more focused on pro-
moting himself than helping
victims of the violence.
That criticism was appar-
ently what prompted Trump to
lash out at Scaramucci on Twit-
ter over the weekend, writing
that he was ‘‘totally incapable
of handling’’ the communica-
tions director job and ‘‘would
do anything to come back in.’’
During the CNN interview,
Scaramucci said he is no longer
supporting Trump’s reelection
bid and wants to see another
Republican step up to run.
Trump responded to Scara-
mucci’s comments in a tweet
Monday afternoon.‘‘Scaramucci, who like so
many others had nothing to do
with my Election victory, is on-
ly upset that I didn’t want him
back in the Administration
(where he desperately wanted
to be),’’ Trump said. ‘‘Also, I sel-
dom had time to return his
many calls to me. He just want-
ed to be on TV!’’
WASHINGTON POSTGiulianicallsforrestrainton
Epsteinconspiracytheories
Rudy Giuliani, a personal
lawyer for President Trump, ad-
vocated Monday for ‘‘withhold-
ing judgement [sic]’’ on con-
spiracy theories concerning the
death of Jeffrey Epstein two
days after Trump promoted a
baseless one involving former
President Bill Clinton.
‘‘The conspiracy theories
concerning the Epstein death
are multiplying,’’ Giuliani wrote
on Twitter, referring to the
death in a federal corrections
facility of the politically con-
nected financier who had been
facing charges of sex traffick-
ing. ‘‘But it is best to wait for
some key facts like the findings
of the autopsy.’’
His morning tweet made no
mention of Trump, who on Sat-
urday retweeted a message
from conservative actor and co-
median Terrence Williams.
Williams suggested that Ep-
stein’s death might be tied to
Clinton, who once socialized
with Epstein. Williams also
questioned how Epstein could
have died by suicide if he had
been on suicide watch.
Williams’s claim is com-
pletely unsubstantiated, and
federal officials say Epstein was
not on suicide watch at the
time of his death.
Angel Ureña, a Clinton
spokesman, responded on Twit-
ter over the weekend: ‘‘Ridicu-
lous, and of course not true —
and Donald Trump knows it.
Has he triggered the 25th
Amendment yet?’’ The 25th
Amendment spells out a pro-
cess for the president’s Cabinet
to remove him from office.News of Epstein’s death on
Saturday quickly fed conspiracy
theories that powerful people
who once socialized with Ep-
stein had a hand in the finan-
cier’s fate and stood to benefit
from his silencing.
WASHINGTON POSTCampaignsselling‘Supreme
CourtChamps’T-shirts
The reelection campaigns of
President Trump and Senate
majority leader Mitch McCon-
nell, Republican from Ken-
tucky,onMondayunveileda
new T-shirt touting the duo as
‘‘Back-to-Back Supreme Court
Champs,’’ in a reference to the
confirmations of Supreme
Court Justices Neil Gorsuch
and Brett Kavanaugh.
The black T-shirt features
the silhouettes of Trump and
McConnell on the front and the
names of Gorsuch and Ka-
vanaugh on its sleeves. It is
available to supporters who
make a donation of $35 or
more through a joint fund-rais-
ing site set up by both cam-
paigns.
‘‘President Trump and Sen-
ate Majority Leader Mitch Mc-
Connell just keep WINNING,’’
the website reads. ‘‘They con-
firmed TWO conservative Su-
preme Court Justices in the last
2 years. We just launched these
exclusive, limited-edition, Offi-
cial Back to Back Supreme
Court Champs T-shirts to cele-
brate our win and drive liberals
crazy.’’
The T-shirt is the latest twist
in a long-running effort by
Trump and McConnell to focus
on judicial nominations in a
bid to energize Republican vot-
ers. Both Trump and McCon-
nell have touted the confirma-
tions of Gorsuch and Ka-
vanaugh on the campaign trail.
And in April, McConnell kicked
off his 2020 reelection bid by
releasing a video highlighting
his successful effort to block
former president Barack
Obama’s Supreme Court nomi-
nee, Merrick Garland.
WASHINGTON POSTGOPurgedtoreplaceTrumpin’
POLITICAL
NOTEBOOKUS weakens rules on species
By Jay Reeves
and Jeff Martin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —
Forecasters are warning about
days of scorching, dangerous
heat gripping a wide swath of
the South and Midwest, where
the heat index on Monday
eclipsed 120 degrees in one
town and climbed nearly that
high in others.
With temperatures around
100 degrees at midday and
‘‘feels like’’ temperatures soar-
ing even higher, parts of 13
states were under heat adviso-
ries, from Texas, Louisiana, and
Florida in the South to Missouri
and Illinois in the Midwest, the
National Weather Service re-
ported.
‘‘It feels like hell is what it
feels like,’’ said Junae Brooks,
who runs Junae’s Grocery in
Holly Bluff, Miss. Around her,
many of her customers kept
coolwithwetragsaroundtheir
necks or by wearing straw hats.
The heat index soared to 121
degrees by late afternoon in
Clarksdale, Miss., and to 119
degrees in West Memphis, Ark.,
the weather service reported.
Similar readings were expected
in eastern Oklahoma.
In Alabama, the tempera-
ture hit 100 degrees with a heat
index of 106 degrees by midaft-
ernoon in Birmingham, the
state’s largest city.
Heat exhaustion and heat
stroke were the leading threats.
More of the same is in store
for Tuesday, when heat and hu-
midity will again make for dan-
gerous heat indexes over a wide
area. However, an approaching
cool front should help ease the
intense heat by Wednesday.
In the Mississippi Delta,
farmers had no choice but towork in the fields Monday as
they scrambled to clear debris
and make repairs after floodwa-
ters inundated the region in re-
cent months.
‘‘The mosquitoes the gnats,
the spiders, the snakes — all of
them — have been way worse
this year,’’ Brooks said.
In Alabama and Tennessee,
high school football coaches
were adjusting practice sched-
ules Monday and Tuesday, with
some moving the workouts in-
doors and others conducting
training in the early morning or
evening, The Tennessean re-
ported.
Cooling stations were open
in several cities.
The region hardest-hit by
the heat wave could experience
many more days each year
when the heat index soars as
the effects of climate change in-
crease, scientists say.DangerousheatgripswidestretchofSouth,Midwest
ANDREA SMITH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A child cooled off Monday at the Fountain of Rings in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park.Monthlypaymentdoesnotincludepropertytaxesorpropertyinsuranceandyouractualpaymentmaybegreater.Offerssubjecttocreditapprovalandothertermsandconditionsmayapply.SubjecttoFANNIEMAEloanlimits.^1 7/1adjustableratemortgagewithnopoints
at3.375%initialinterestrateandanAnnualPercentageRate(APR)of4.161%asofAugust7,2019,basedonaloanamountof$100,000witha20%downpaymentandminimumFICOscoreof720.Ratesaresubjecttochangeatanytimewithoutnotice.Basedoncurrent
marketconditions,thepaymentschedulewouldbe:84paymentsof$442.10ataninterestrateof3.375%;275paymentsof$499.54ataninterestrateof4.625%;and1paymentof$500.38ataninterestrateof4.625%.^2 30yearfixedratemortgageat3.750%withnopoints
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areforConventionalloanswhichconformtosecondarymarketstandardsandaresecuredbyOwnerOccupied1-4FamilyProperties.Requires360monthlypaymentsof$4.63per$1,000borrowed. NMLS#417688|MemberFDICHOME LOANS
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