It’s getting to be old-hat. Following up on an earlier promise, US President Barack Obama has formally reversed yet another of his predecessor’s policies, this one focusing on the institutional role of science in protecting endangered species (AP).

The rule in question was targeted at the so-called “Section 7 consultations” under the Endangered Species Act. Current regulations require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to review all projects involving federal government for potential impacts to endangered species. The Bush administration’s rule would have allowed other federal agencies to skip that review process if their own experts determined that it wasn’t necessary.

In theory, such a system might improve things on the front end. The idea is that other federal agencies would have an incentive to integrate biology into the planning process rather than simply passing the environmental review to Fish and Wildlife, which comes in on the tail end and tries to straighten things out. For those worried about whether these initial agency reviews would be sufficient, the argument goes, lawsuits remain as a critical backstop.

But many environmentalists feared the administration was simply seeking to undercut environmental law. And indeed, the rule included language that would have given a default green light to any project if certain permitting schedules weren’t met, a policy that naturally puts agencies on the defensive against eager business interests.

Environmentalists roundly hailed the Interior Department’s decision but suggested that the administration could have gone a step further and eliminated a special rule that accompanied the Polar Bear’s listing as a threatened species. That rule basically says that the Endangered Species Act cannot be used to block or shut down, say, coal-fired power plants in Arizona, even if those facilities would increase greenhouse gas emissions that would enhance global warming, melt more sea ice and therefore endanger the polar bear.

Seems like the ESA might not be the best place to regulate greenhouse gases, but we’ll have to wait and see how that question plays out. Reuters quoted a Fish and Wildlife official saying that the administration plans to make a determination on that rule next month.