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USFWS Revised Mitigation Policy and ESA Compensatory Mitigation Policy
Senior Natural Resources Technical Director • Austin
Amanda Glen
Amanda Glen is SWCA’s natural resources technical director for biological services and provides strategic guidance on permitting and compliance for matters involving protected wildlife, plants, and habitats. Currently managing a national practice, she has more than 25 years of consulting experience with an emphasis on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and how compliance with the ESA influences other regulatory programs. Her wealth of experience pertaining to endangered species issues includes research, permitting, consultations, status reviews, and conservation planning. Her experience includes negotiating compliance solutions for critically imperiled species facing potential determinations of jeopardy or adverse modification of designated critical habitats. She has led efforts to delist species no longer requiring the protections of the ESA when supported by sound science, and has been involved in voluntary conservation planning to help preclude the need to list species. Amanda frequently presents at regional and national conferences on matters related to the ESA, including new listings, regulatory and policy changes, and trends in compliance strategies.
Office Director | Honolulu
Amanda Ehrenkrantz
Amanda Ehrenkrantz is the Pacific Islands Office Director and a wildlife ecologist with experience conducting a wide range of field protocols, as well as writing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)- and Endangered Species Act (ESA)-compliant documents and technical reports. She has authored Biological Assessments (BAs) and Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) for a range of project types and covered activities. In the field, she is proficient at leading and conducting habitat assessments and surveys for bats, big game, small mammals, prairie dogs, and raptors, including threatened, endangered, and sensitive wildlife species. Ms. Ehrenkrantz has worked on a range of project types, including energy development (wind, solar, coal, oil, and gas), transmission, large- and small-scale housing development, airports, and roads.
Written By
Amanda Glen
Senior Natural Resources Technical Director
Amanda Ehrenkrantz
Office Director | Honolulu
Posted
May 17, 2023
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFWS) has revised its Mitigation Policy and Endangered Species Act Compensatory Mitigation Policy. These two policies influence how the USFWS will consider and address mitigation goals and standards. The revised policies adopt Obama-era policies that were enacted in 2016 and later repealed in 2017, with some modifications based on previous legal challenges. Project proponents and species conservation bank sponsors seeking to use or create mitigation will have new standards and obligations under these revised policies. The USFWS will apply these revised policies to determine what types of actions qualify as mitigation.
In practice, the new policies will make the species mitigation process similar to the Compensatory Mitigation for Losses of Aquatic Resources (33 Code of Federal Regulations Parts 325 and 332, and 40 Code of Federal Regulations Part 230) (73 Federal Register 19594, April 10, 2008).
Revised Mitigation Policy
- Serves as an umbrella policy under which the USFWS may take a hierarchical approach to address mitigation, issuing more detailed policies and guidance documents covering specific activities.
- Maintains the current mitigation goal of no net loss but integrates the concepts of the 2016 mitigation policies that were repealed in 2017.
- Establishes fundamental mitigation principles — namely “nexus and proportionality” — with the intent of applying mitigation that has clear, proportional, and effective linkage between conservation and effects of the action at appropriate landscape scales.
Revised Endangered Species Act Compensatory Mitigation Policy
- Establishes compensatory mitigation, processes, standards, and execution, creating new obligations for qualified compensatory mitigation.
- Adopts the revised Mitigation Policy issued in May 2023, specifically the mitigation principles on “nexus and proportionality” with the “essential nexus” between an action’s effects and compensatory mitigation, and mitigation proportional to the action’s effects.
- Reiterates the principle on “nexus” that “mitigation measures must have a clear connection with the anticipated effects of the action and be commensurate with the scale and nature of those effects.”
SWCA Can Help
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