WASHINGTON – A group of former Interior Department officials from both major parties is calling a Trump administration move to ease wildlife restrictions bird-brained.
Seventeen former political appointees and career officials sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke urging him to reconsider easing rules around a century-old law used to prosecute oil firms and other companies for the killing of migratory birds.
"This legal opinion is contrary to the long-standing interpretation by every administration (Republican and Democrat) since at least the 1970's," the group wrote in a letter sent to Zinke on Wednesday, as well as to members of Congress.
The letter-writing group is diverse, spanning the administrations of former presidents Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. Paul Schmidt, assistant director of migratory birds at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 2003 to 2011, organized the effort, saying both Republicans and Democrats were easy to recruit. "There wasn't any hesitation on anyone's part," Schmidt said. "We finalized that letter in short order."
Interior's principal deputy solicitor, Daniel Jorjani, issued the new legal interpretation three days before Christmas – one of several last-minute stocking-stuffers given out by Trump's environmental officials.
The law being reinterpreted is the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, or MBTA, one of the nation's oldest environmental statutes. The act made it illegal to "pursue, hunt, take, [or] capture" any migratory bird "by any means whatever [and] at any time or in any manner."
Because the law is so broadly worded, incidents like a motorist striking and killing a bird "might be a technical violation," Schmidt said. But in practice, he added, federal prosecutors tend to exercise restraint, bringing cases against companies that had failed to take precautionary measures aimed at averting bird deaths.
Interior's office of the solicitor, however, worried the law still "hangs the sword of Damocles over a host of otherwise lawful and productive actions." Under the new interpretation, a company would be in violation of the law only when it is "engaged in an activity the object of which was to render an animal subject to human control."
The former Interior officials felt that interpretation was far too narrow: "This is a new, contrived legal standard that creates a huge loophole" in the existing act, the letter-writers wrote, "allowing companies to engage in activities that routinely kill migratory birds so long as they were not intending that their operations would 'render an animal subject to human control.' "
Interior did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. But in late December, Interior's deputy director of communications, Russell Newell, said in an email the opinion issued just days before President Trump's inauguration "criminalized all actions that killed migratory birds, whether purposeful or not."
This is far from the first time officials from past administrations have chewed out Trump's crew over environmental policy.
Last month, three former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency under Republican presidents joined with Bill Clinton's Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, in publicly criticizing the proposed opening of an Alaska gold and copper mine near Bristol Bay's sockeye salmon fishery. In June, seven former heads of the Energy Department's energy efficiency and renewables office wrote in protest of proposed budget cuts there.