Emergency Listing Petition Submitted

Wild Earth Guardians, a new environmental organization formed from the amalgamation of Forest Guardians and Sinapu, has petitioned the Service to list, on an emergency basis, 32 species (largely insects and plants).  Last year the group submitted a petition to list over 600 hundred species, but in response to that petition, the Service determined that none merited emergency listing.

The significance of Wild Earth's petition is that, if an emergency is found (where an emergency "pos[es]a significant risk to the well-being of any species of fish or wildlife or plants"), the Service has the authority to circumvent the normal notice-and-comment procedures that must be complied with before a species may be listed.  See 16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(7).  If a species is emergency-listed, the listing can last for no longer than 240 days, unless during that period the Service complies with the ESA's rulemaking procedures (which incorporate APA standards).  See id.