PORTLAND, Maine >> The federal government is withdrawing a proposal that would require more ships to slow down in East Coast waters to try to save a vanishing species of whale, officials said Wednesday.

The move in the waning days of the Biden administration will leave the endangered North Atlantic right whale vulnerable to extinction as the Trump administration is signaling a shift from environmental conservation to support for marine industries, conservation groups said. But federal authorities said there’s no way to implement the rules before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.

The new vessel speed rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service more than two years ago have been the topic of much debate among shippers, commercial fishermen and wildlife conservationists, who all have a stake in the whale’s fate. The whale, which is vulnerable to collisions with ships, numbers less than 380 and its population has plummeted in recent years.

The Trump administration is likely to be less enthusiastic about new restrictions on shipping, said Gib Brogan, a campaign director with conservation group Oceana.

“While we’ve been waiting and watching the proposed rule move forward, and ultimately stall, we’ve watched on the water outcomes of the current insufficient protections,” Brogan said. “And we’ve watched whales be killed by speeding boats.”

Thousands of public comments

The proposed rules would have expanded slow zones off the East Coast as well as the size classes of boats and ships that must slow down.

The fisheries service received about 90,000 public comments about them, according to documents set to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday. The filing says the service “does not have sufficient time to finalize this regulation in this administration due to the scope and volume of public comments.”

The final rule to modify North Atlantic right whale vessel speed regulations had been with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which reviews new regulations before they are implemented, said Katherine Silverstein, a spokesperson for the National Marine Fisheries Service. She confirmed the fisheries service withdrew the rule on Wednesday.