(CN) — The Biden administration announced Friday it will delay the implementation of a rule that would dramatically cut the critical habitat of the northern spotted owl, the first step in the potential reversal of one of the final environmental rollbacks of the Trump administration. 

One week before Inauguration Day, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife published a rule that eliminated about 3.5 million acres of land, mostly in Oregon, from federal protections. The reduction was massive, much larger than the approximately 280,000 acres the agency had proposed to withdraw in August 2020. 

Now under the aegis of the Biden administration, Fish and Wildlife noted on Friday that the considerable difference between the proposed and final rule and the lack of public input on the matter was sufficient to pause the implementation of the rule. 

“We are considering whether the public had appropriate notice in the proposed rule such that the determinations made in the final rule were a ‘logical outgrowth’ of the proposed rule,” the agency said in an unpublished rule. “We note that several members of Congress expressed concerns regarding the additional exclusions, among other concerns, which they identified in a Feb. 2, 2021, letter to the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior seeking review of the rule.”

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