Trump’s Latest Attack on Endangered Species Act Threatens Biodiversity

What Happened: The Trump administration is once again attacking the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a widely popular and effective law that has kept 99% of the species it protects from extinction. Trump’s latest proposed rules significantly weaken the ESA and limit the law’s effectiveness.

Why It Matters: The ESA is the best tool we have to fight the worsening biodiversity crisis, which puts a million species at risk of extinction. Already, over one-third of plant and animal species in the U.S. are at risk of disappearing. Across 14 presidential administrations, Earthjustice has used this law to protect imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which we all depend.

The public will have 30 days to issue comments on the Trump administration’s proposed rules.

What is the Endangered Species Act?

• A bedrock environmental law: Since its passage in 1973, the ESA has helped save thousands of species of plants and animals from extinction. The law protects imperiled species from activities that would further threaten their survival, such as development in vital habitats.
• Habitat protections: The ESA has also protected millions of acres of habitat upon which species depend, including forests, beaches, and wetlands, from destruction and degradation.
• How we’ve used it: Earthjustice has used the Endangered Species Act as a powerful tool to preserve hundreds of species, including grizzly bears, gray wolves, salmon, and orcas — as well as the ecosystems that sustain them.

How is the Trump administration threatening endangered species?

• President Trump’s latest attack proposes rule revisions that sacrifice our natural world to f billionaires and corporate interests.
• These revisions include:
  • Depriving newly listed species from automatically receiving protection from harm;
  • Narrowing the definition of ‘critical habitat’ to exclude historic habitat that’s vital for species’ recovery;
  • Loosening rules to make it easier for federal agencies to greenlight destructive logging and drilling that threaten species;
  • Allowing ‘economic considerations’ in decisions about whether to protect endangered species, violating the letter of the law.
• A concerning pattern: These attacks are just the latest President Trump has taken to try and undermine the ESA. The second Trump administration has also proposed reversing a statute that threatens critical habitat and has invoked a rarely used provision that empowers a committee comprised of the president’s own appointees to decide the fate of endangered species.

How Earthjustice is prepared to fight back

• We’ve been here before: The first Trump administration also targeted the ESA. Earthjustice went straight to court, where we succeeded in overturning many Trump actions and identified many others that the Biden administration should and ultimately did reverse after it took office. We are prepared to defend this vital law again.
• Fighting for individual species: We also won legal fights against the first Trump administration that safeguarded individual species when it tried to strip them of ESA protections. One of our cases spared Yellowstone grizzlies from planned trophy hunts; another restored protections for gray wolves in 44 states.
• What you can do: By limiting the ESA’s effectiveness, Trump’s actions defy public opinion, scientific opposition, and the law. The public will have 30 days to issue comments on the proposed rules.