Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Rough Popcornflower From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 17</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-R1-ES-2024-0005; FXES1113090FEDR-245-FF09E22000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1018-BG68</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassification of the Rough Popcornflower From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to reclassify the rough popcornflower ( <E T="03">Plagiobothrys hirtus</E> ) from endangered to threatened (downlist) under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). The proposed downlisting is based on our evaluation of the best available scientific and commercial information, which indicates that the species' status has improved such that it is not currently in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, but that it is still likely to become so within the foreseeable future. We also propose protective regulations under the authority of section 4(d) of the Act that are necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the rough popcornflower. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We will accept comments received or postmarked on or before February 10, 2025. Comments submitted electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> , below) must be received by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on the closing date. We must receive requests for public hearings, in writing, at the address shown in <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> by January 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter FWS-R1-ES-2024-0005, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Then, click on the Search button. On the resulting page, in the panel on the left side of the screen, under the Document Type heading, check the Proposed Rule box to locate this document. You may submit a comment by clicking on “Comment.” (2) <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R1-ES-2024-0005, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. We request that you send comments only by the methods described above. We will post all comments on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This generally means that we will post any personal information you provide us (see Information Requested, below, for more information). <E T="03">Availability of supporting materials:</E> This proposed rule and supporting documents, including the 5-year reviews, the Recovery Plan, and the species status assessment (SSA) report are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at Docket No. FWS-R1-ES-2024-0005. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kessina Lee, State Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office, 2600 SE 98th Avenue, Suite 100, Portland, OR 97266; telephone: (503) 231-6179. Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. Please see Docket No. FWS-R1-ES-2024-0005 on <E T="03">https://regulations.gov</E> for a document that summarizes this proposed rule. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Summary</HD> <E T="03">Why we need to publish a rule.</E> Under the Act, a species warrants reclassification from endangered to threatened if it no longer meets the definition of an endangered species (in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range). The rough popcornflower is listed as endangered, and we are proposing to reclassify (downlist) the rough popcornflower as threatened. We have determined the rough popcornflower does not meet the Act's definition of an endangered species, but it does meet the Act's definition of a threatened species (likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range). Reclassifying a species as a threatened species can be completed only by issuing a rule through the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking process (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <E T="03">What this document does.</E> This rule proposes to downlist the rough popcornflower from endangered to threatened, with a rule issued under section 4(d) of the Act (a “4(d) rule”), based on the species' current status, which has been improved through implementation of conservation actions. <E T="03">The basis for our action.</E> Under the Act, we may determine that a species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of five factors: (A) The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; or (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. We may reclassify a species if the best available commercial and scientific data indicate the species no longer meets the applicable definition in the Act. Based on the status review, the current threats analysis, and evaluation of conservation measures discussed in this proposed rule, we conclude that the rough popcornflower no longer meets the Act's definition of an endangered species and should be reclassified to a threatened species. The species is no longer in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, but it is likely to become so within the foreseeable future. We have determined that rough popcornflower is a threatened species due to the following threats: destruction or alteration of habitat by development and hydrological changes, competition from native and nonnative plant species, and impacts due to climate change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Information Requested</HD> We intend that any final action resulting from this proposed rule will be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible. Therefore, we request comments or information from other governmental agencies, Native American Tribes, the scientific community, industry, or any other interested parties concerning this proposed rule. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) Reasons we should or should not downlist the rough popcornflower as a threatened species. (2) New information on the historical and current status, range, distribution, and population size of the species. (3) New information on the known and potential threats to the species, including habitat loss, habitat modification, competition, or climate change. (4) New information regarding the life history, ecology, and habitat use of the species. (5) Current or planned activities within the geographic range of the species that may have adverse or beneficial impacts on the species. (6) Information to assist with applying or issuing protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Act that may be necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the rough popcornflower. (a) In particular, information concerning the extent to which we should include any of the section 9 prohibitions in the 4(d) rule; or (b) whether we should consider any additional or different exceptions from the prohibitions in the 4(d) rule. Please include sufficient information with your submission (such as scientific journal articles or other publications) to allow us to verify any scientific or commercial information you include. Please note that submissions merely stating support for, or opposition to, the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, will not be considered in making a determination, as section 4(b)(1)(A) of the Act directs that determinations as to whether any species is an endangered or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available. You may submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . We request that you send comments only by the methods described in <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> . If you submit information via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your entire submission—including any personal identifying information—will be posted on the website. If your submission is made via a hardcopy that includes personal identifying information, you may request at the top of your document that we withhold this information from public review. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. We will post all hardcopy submissions on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments and materials we receive, as well as supporting documentation we used in preparing this proposed rule, will be available for public inspection on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Our final determination may differ from this proposal because we will consider all comments we receive during the comment period, as well as any information that may become available after this proposal. Based on the new information we receive (and if relevant, any comments on that new information), we may conc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 106k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━