WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Biden White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs today for failing to turn over documents related to the protection of endangered species and their critical habitat.

Today’s lawsuit seeks records relating to delays in protections caused by the White House’s review of critical habitat for red knot shorebirds, Miami cave crayfish, four freshwater mussels, and Florida bonneted bats, as well as vital protections for Atlantic right whales from ship strikes.

“It’s awful that commonsense protections for our nation’s most endangered wildlife have been needlessly delayed by this White House,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. “The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has stood in the way of environmental and societal progress for decades. It’s a shame that the president empowered this rogue office to put polluters and special interests before people every day of his administration.”

OIRA is a small office within the White House Office of Management and Budget that has the ability to review, change or even halt any federal agency’s regulatory proposals, usually based on purported concerns about the proposals’ costs. OIRA’s review is guided by Clinton-era Executive Order 12866, which gives the office 90 days to review an agency proposal. The records being sought relate to endangered species protections that have been held for review from 4 to 8 months.

During the George W. Bush administration, OIRA delayed for more than a year on rules designed to minimize ship strikes on critically endangered Atlantic right whales. The pattern of irrational disdain for right whales continued in both the Obama and Biden administrations, with the office continuing to delay protections for this species. Following the election, these delays are likely to continue, leaving right whales unprotected during the entirety of the incoming Trump administration.

President Obama’s director of OIRA rejected a Clean Air Act rule to set the ozone pollution standard at 60 parts per billion — an action that could have prevented thousands of premature deaths each year. And during the Trump administration, OIRA was the key office implementing Trump’s so-called “2 for 1” deregulatory agenda demanding that two regulations be removed before a new regulation could be enacted.

When President Biden took office, he signed “Modernizing Regulatory Review,” a presidential memorandum that purported to reform OIRA by better considering “social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations” in the rulemaking process. To date, OIRA has not meaningfully acted on this memorandum.

“OIRA loves working in the shadows to weaken environmental protections, human health protections and our most basic rights,” said Hartl. “No one should accept an agency inside the White House that works solely for polluters and special interests. We will try to bring some sunlight to this rotten institution, which is likely to wield unprecedented powers under Trump.”

Earthrise Law Center at Lewis & Clark Law School is representing the Center for Biological Diversity in this lawsuit.