Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Regulations for Designating Critical Habitat

s and will provide greater transparency and certainty to the public and stakeholders and is our preferred approach. The regulations include some differences relative to what was outlined in the 2016 policy. These differences from the 2016 policy include an information standard applicable to when FWS undertakes a discretionary weighing analysis, a clarification of how considerations for exclusions will be conducted for Federal lands, and an approach for giving weight to the benefits of inclusion or exclusion of any particular areas designated as critical habitat. Additionally, as discussed in our 2020 proposed rule (85 FR 55398, September 8, 2020) we decided to revisit certain language in the preamble of the 2016 policy, as well as certain statements in the preamble to the 2013 rule that revised the regulations on the timing of our economic analyses at 50 CFR 424.19 (78 FR 53058, August 28, 2013) (hereafter ``the 2013 rule''), to provide clarity to the FWS and the public in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. FWS, 586 U.S. 9 (2018) (hereafter ``Weyerhaeuser'') that decisions not to exclude particular areas of critical habitat are judicially reviewable. At the time we developed the 2013 rule and 2016 policy, the Services were guided by a line of cases in which courts had held that a decision by the Services not to exclude a particular area under sect