This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Environmental groups and tribes are suing the Trump administration over a new rule eliminating the majority of habitat protections for imperiled wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Experts say the rule represents the most profound change to the law since it was first enacted in 1973, paving the way for more development and industrial activities that will likely harm vulnerable animals and plants. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to weaken the Endangered Species Act in ways that will benefit politically powerful industries like oil and gas.
First proposed in April, the finalized rule will rescind the law’s longstanding regulatory interpretation of “harm,” which is defined as any significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injures wildlife. The administration said in a press release last week that the law’s core protections remain “firmly in place,” but that rescinding the harm definition will “reduce unnecessary permitting, cut compliance costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners, small businesses, energy producers, farmers, ranchers and local governments.”
“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.”
A coalition of nine environmental groups and two Washington tribes filed separate lawsuits this week contesting the decision. They argue that rescinding the harm rule is prohibited by the ESA’s statutory language and defies the core goal of the law, given that habitat loss is the primary driver of extinction.
“It’s so intuitive, and it’s also the law that endangered species need to have habitat, or they can’t survive,” said Ben Levitan, a senior attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which filed one of the lawsuits alongside the Center for Biological Diversity, Oregon Wild, the Sierra Club, and several other nonprofits. “The Trump administration is pretending like that requirement just doesn’t exist. So we’re trying to enforce that law and make sure that the Trump administration enforces it too.”
The ESA prohibits the “take” of an endangered species, which includes actions “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” Historically, the “harm” part of this mandate encompasses “any activity that can modify a species’ habitat.”
This statute has been the “single most important tool for protecting habitat on non-federal land,” according to Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. More than two-thirds of species listed under the Endangered Species Act depend at least in part on private lands, with 10 percent residing only on such property.
A 2019 study found that 81 percent of the species listed under the ESA from 1975 to 2017 were threatened or endangered due to habitat loss and degradation, as opposed to direct causes such as hunting. That includes the desert tortoise and the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Rather than blocking projects altogether, the “harm” rule has typically required companies to adjust operations to minimize their impact on endangered species, Parenteau said. That could mean adjusting the timing of construction to avoid disrupting a listed bird species’ breeding season or moving a road project so it won’t cut off grizzly bears’ access to habitat and food.
But the provision can be a thorn in the side of industries that often overlap with wildlife habitat, said Dave Owen, an environmental law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. He published a 2012 study that found the majority of habitat protections offered by the ESA fall under the harm definition.
“Protecting species is in large part about protecting habitat, and avoiding habitat modification that causes harm has been a big part of how the Endangered Species Act provides those protections,” he said. “For many years, regulated industries have complained about that.”
This tension came to a head in 1995 amid a legal dispute over forests that timber interests wanted to cut down, but that overlapped with the habitat of vulnerable northern spotted owls and red-cockaded woodpeckers. The Supreme Court maintained the harm definition, ruling in favor of the species’ protection.
But the Trump administration argues that this interpretation was an “unlawful regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights,” according to the July 10 press release.
The April proposal to rescind the definition triggered a wave of backlash from conservationists and the public. Approximately 358,000 public comments were filed on the proposed rule, many condemning the action as extinction fodder. Others supported the change, which they said would reduce regulatory hurdles for landowners and industry. The Forest Landowners Association submitted a comment in May that the change would “create efficiencies for the regulated community and align the statutory interpretation of ‘take’ more closely with Congress’s original intent.”
The rule will go into effect on September 14. But a coalition of tribes and environmental groups hope to overturn it. Several cases have been filed so far, including a lawsuit spearheaded by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and Squaxin Island Tribe in the US District Court for Western Washington.
The Swinomish Tribe submitted thousands of pages of scientific literature during the public comment period that its leaders say shows the importance of habitat protection for endangered species such as the culturally important—and vulnerable—salmon that swim in their waters.
“This rule will worsen salmon habitat conditions and without question that will reduce salmon stocks,” Tandy Wilbur, a Swinomish senator and fisheries manager, said in a statement. “Because salmon is both food and spiritual nourishment for Swinomish Community members, I fear for the health of our people and our cultural lifeways.”
The Trump administration did not answer questions from Inside Climate News about these legal actions or how the federal government will provide habitat protection for threatened and endangered species after rescinding the harm definition.
Every species protected by the ESA could be hurt by the rule change, experts warn.
“If you’re taking away the most important tool under the Endangered Species Act to protect most of the habitat that the species need to survive, they won’t,” said Parenteau. Without the harm rule, species already struggling with myriad threats from human activities will be further exposed, he explained: “The manatees starve because the water’s polluted. The salmon can’t spawn because the waters are sedimented and too hot.”
Since President Donald Trump regained office, his administration has hammered away at the ESA in pursuit of “energy dominance” and more widespread development. Other proposed changes aim to reduce the number of species afforded the highest level of protection under the law and agencies’ ability to protect species against rapid global warming. In March, a rarely tapped panel of high-level officials nicknamed the “God Squad” agreed to exempt federally regulated oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from complying with the ESA, which environmental groups challenging the action in court say could drive rare species such as the Rice’s whale to extinction.
The harm rule change could eventually end up before the Supreme Court, as it did in 1995. But Owen said this may backfire on the plaintiffs because the court, far more conservative now than it was a generation ago, could enshrine the change in a “much more lasting way than would happen just through a regulatory amendment alone.”
Asked about this, Earthjustice’s Levitan said the law and science are “on our side.”
Facts Only
* Environmental groups and tribes filed lawsuits against the Trump administration regarding a new rule.
* The rule proposes to rescind the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm,” defined as significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injures wildlife.
* The administration stated the change would reduce permitting, cut compliance costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners and businesses.
* Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stated that core ESA protections remain in place despite rescinding the harm definition.
* A coalition of nine environmental groups and two Washington tribes filed separate lawsuits contesting the rule.
* Lawsuits argue that rescinding the harm rule violates the ESA's statutory language and the law’s goal, given habitat loss drives extinction.
* The ESA prohibits "take," which historically included actions that modify a species’ habitat.
* Habitat loss is cited as the primary driver of extinction for listed species.
* The “harm” rule typically required companies to adjust operations to minimize habitat impact rather than blocking projects entirely.
* The rule is set to go into effect on September 14.
Executive Summary
Environmental groups and tribes are suing the Trump administration over a new rule that eliminates most habitat protections for species protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The proposed rule seeks to rescind the ESA’s definition of "harm," which is currently understood as any significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injures wildlife. The administration argues this change will reduce regulatory burdens, cut costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners, businesses, and governments. In response, a coalition of nine environmental groups and two Washington tribes filed lawsuits, arguing that rescinding the harm rule violates the ESA's statutory language and contradicts the law's goal, as habitat loss is the primary driver of extinction.
The legal challenge centers on the fact that the "harm" definition historically encompassed habitat modification, which has been central to protecting species. Experts contend that removing this protection exposes vulnerable wildlife to greater risk, citing studies indicating that habitat loss drives endangerment more than direct actions like hunting. The conflict is further complicated by historical disputes where the Supreme Court upheld the harm definition, and the administration claims prior interpretations constituted unlawful regulatory intrusion. Legal challenges are ongoing, with tribes asserting the rule will negatively impact critical resources like salmon habitat, while advocates maintain the law supports necessary habitat preservation for species survival.
Full Take
The central tension in this situation lies in the conflict between administrative efficiency, which the administration champions by reducing regulatory hurdles for industries, and the foundational biological imperatives recognized by the ESA—specifically the requirement that species must have habitat to survive. The move to redefine "harm" represents an attempt to shift the legal focus from ecological necessity to economic convenience, suggesting a paradigm where the cost of conservation is viewed as an avoidable regulatory burden rather than an inherent mandate for survival.
The pattern emerging is a consistent push by powerful industries seeking to minimize external constraints on development, which aligns with historical disputes over property rights and regulatory interference. The argument that habitat protection is secondary to economic activity—which was adjudicated in the 1995 forest dispute but seems to be re-asserted here—suggests a systemic disregard for ecological science when it conflicts with industrial interests. When courts or administrative bodies determine that economic streamlining supersedes established ecological principles, the consequences are materialized as increased vulnerability for threatened species, exemplified by concerns over salmon and manatees.
The difficulty in overturning this regulatory shift is underscored by the anticipated deference of the judiciary, especially given a more conservative legal environment. The potential backfire noted by legal experts suggests that while procedural legal challenges may occur, the deeper, underlying reality—the ecological cost of deregulation—may be cemented through precedent rather than purely adversarial litigation. What questions remain about whether current legal structures are sufficiently designed to prevent economic expediency from overriding biological necessity?