特朗普政府周五采取行动，取消了对该国鸟类的长期联邦保护，原因是前联邦官员和许多科学家反对说，结果可能会有数十亿只鸟类死亡。
美国鱼类和野生动物管理局在《联邦公报》上发表了对拟议中的回滚的看法。这是最后一步，意味着这一变化——极大地限制了联邦政府对杀害候鸟的行业进行起诉的权力——可以在30天内正式实施。
野生动物服务机构在其调查结果中承认，这一回滚将对1918年《候鸟条约法》涵盖的许多鸟类物种产生“负面”影响，这些鸟类包括鹰、鹰、海鸟、鹳、鸣禽和麻雀。
这一举措削弱了联邦检察机关对候鸟面临的来自工业的致命威胁的起诉权——从电线上的电击，到从空中和油田废物坑撞击它们的风力涡轮机，在那里着陆的鸟在有毒的水中死亡。
根据美国鱼类和野生动物管理局和最近的研究，在北美大约70亿只鸟中，工业运营每年杀死大约4.5亿到11亿只鸟。
特朗普政府坚持认为，该法案应仅适用于故意杀害或伤害的鸟类，并正在将这一“澄清”变化纳入监管。鱼类和野生动物管理局表示，这一变化将“提高执法的一致性和效率”。
尽管纽约的一名联邦法官于8月驳回了政府的法律依据，但政府仍继续推动候鸟监管。
新闻机构宣布唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统被民主党人乔·拜登(Joe Biden)击败两天后，联邦官员向白宫提出了对鸟类条约的修改，这是通过之前的最后一步。
美国国家奥杜邦协会(National Audubon Society)主席大卫·亚诺德(David Yarnold)周五在一份声明中表示，特朗普“急于敲定自己的杀鸟政策”。“恢复这项有100年历史的基本法律必须是拜登-哈里斯政府和国会的首要保护任务”。
美国鸟类保护协会的史蒂夫·霍尔默说，这一变化将加速自20世纪70年代以来席卷北美的鸟类数量下降。
全国制造商协会副主席雷切尔·琼斯说，1918年条约的实施对商业建筑、输电系统和其他基础设施的建设有着广泛的影响。
琼斯表示，特朗普领导下的改革是必要的，以确保鸟类法没有被“滥用”。这是行业律师长期以来的抱怨，尽管联邦官员辩称他们很少提起刑事诉讼。
这是即将离任的政府为行业利益而进行的一系列最后一刻的变革的一部分。其他人将扩大北极钻探，支持开发而不是保护濒危物种的栖息地，并可能阻碍未来对环境和公共健康威胁的监管，以及其他倒退。
Trump administration moves ahead on gutting bird protections
The Trump administration moved forward Friday on gutting a longstanding federal protection for the nation's birds, over objections from former federal officials and many scientists that billions more birds will likely perish as a result.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its take on the proposed rollback in the Federal Register. It's a final step that means the change — greatly limiting federal authority to prosecute industries for practices that kill migratory birds — could be made official within 30 days.
The wildlife service acknowledged in its findings that the rollback would have a “negative” effect on the many bird species covered by the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which range from hawks and eagles to seabirds, storks, songbirds and sparrows.
The move scales back federal prosecution authority for the deadly threats migratory birds face from industry — from electrocution on power lines, to wind turbines that knock them from the air and oil field waste pits where landing birds perish in toxic water.
Industry operations kill an estimated 450 million to 1.1 billion birds annually, out of roughly 7 billion birds in North America, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent studies.
The Trump administration maintains that the Act should apply only to birds killed or harmed intentionally, and is putting that “clarifying” change into regulation. The change would “improve consistency and efficiency in enforcement,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said.
The administration has continued to push the migratory bird regulation even after a federal judge in New York in August rejected the administration’s legal rationale.
Two days after news organizations announced President Donald Trump’s defeat by Democrat Joe Biden, federal officials advanced the bird treaty changes to the White House, one of the final steps before adoption.
Trump was “in a frenzy to finalize his bird-killer policy,” David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, said in a statement Friday. ”Reinstating this 100-year-old bedrock law must be a top conservation priority for the Biden-Harris Administration" and Congress.
Steve Holmer with the American Bird Conservancy said the change would accelerate bird population declines that have swept North America since the 1970s.
How the 1918 treaty gets enforced has sweeping ramifications for the construction of commercial buildings, electric transmission systems and other infrastructure, said Rachel Jones, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Jones said the changes under Trump would be needed to make sure the bird law wasn’t used in an “abusive way.” That’s a longstanding complaint from industry lawyers despite federal officials’ contention that they bring criminal charges only rarely.
It’s part of a flurry of last-minute changes under the outgoing administration benefiting industry. Others would expand Arctic drilling, favor development over habitat protections for imperiled species and potentially hamstring future regulation of environmental and public health threats, among other rollbacks.
