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The Trump administration repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Friday, finalizing a new rule that will open habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.
For the last ۵۰ years, the landmark environmental law included a broader understanding of the word “harm”, which ensured that not just the plants and animals themselves were protected but also the places that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the supreme court in ۱۹۹۵, which ruled in support of old-growth forest protections relied on by endangered spotted owls.
But despite widespread public support for a strong ESA – and hundreds of thousands of public comments submitted opposing the change – the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce reframed the definition as “regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights” and announced it would be rescinded.
Habitat destruction is considered the strongest driver of species loss. The legislation has helped safeguard more than ۱,۷۰۰ species and their habitats, preventing ۹۹% of those listed from going extinct, most famously the bald eagle. Experts fear the move could cause catastrophic damage to species already close to the brink.
“For the first time ever, a presidential administration now claims that species protected by the Endangered Species Act shouldn’t be safe from habitat modification that destroys where they live, raise their young, or search for food,” Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles said in a statement.
Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the plan would be “a death sentence for wolverines, monarch butterflies, Florida manatees and so many other animals and plants that desperately need our help”, when the proposal was first released last year.
The erosion in regulations comes amid an extinction emergency, as the climate crisis adds new challenges to recovery. Roughly ۱m species are threatened with extinction, according to a ۲۰۱۹ assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), including roughly ۴۰% of amphibians, and a third of reef-forming corals, marine mammals and sharks.
Insects, considered the bedrock of biodiversity and the foundation of most ecosystems on Earth, are in rapid decline. About ۸۰% of insect species have yet to be identified and some are disappearing before they can be named.
Impacts to habitat can threaten a broader network of interconnected species and ecosystems. Landscape modification can trigger a devastating domino effect, where the loss of one species leads to the extinction of others that depend on it.
The US public broadly supports species protections. A ۲۰۲۳ poll found that ۸۰% of registered voters favored full-funding of the ESA and ۷۳% view biodiversity as important to their everyday lives.
But Trump administration officials claim the rules were changed to better align with what they believe is the original intent of the law. Accusing federal agencies of abusing the ESA to “obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses”, interior secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that the protections “turned routine activity into a regulatory trap”.
In the announcement, officials said “actions that directly injure or kill listed wildlife will continue to be prohibited”.
But these rescinded rules are part of a broader deregulatory effort by Donald Trump, who has made it a priority to dismantle endangered species protections to boost energy extraction and industrial access, even in the US’s most sensitive and vulnerable natural areas.
In March, the president convened the so-called “God squad”, named for its ability to decide a species’ fate, to expand oil and gas industry operations in the Gulf of Mexico. At the start of his second term, Trump appointed high-ranking federal officials to the group to come up with ways to sidestep ESA rules that create “obstacles to domestic energy infrastructure”.
Advocates are already preparing to challenge the new interpretation of harm.
“Let’s be clear: there is no support for the Trump Administration’s rule – no scientific support, no legal support, no public support,” Boyles said. “We will see the Trump Administration in court.”
