On November 21, the Trump administration proposed rules that would significantly weaken the Endangered Species Act. The rules, if finalized, would strip automatic protections from newly listed species, weaken federal oversight of harmful projects, and make it easier to erase critical habitat.
Generally, the administration proposed eliminating virtually all of the changes made by the Biden administration to the same regulations, which were made to correct and improve the regulations after they were modified and weakened in 2019 during the first Trump administration.
The administration’s primary rationale for these proposed Rules is to comply with Executive Order (E.O.) 14154, “Unleashing American Energy” which requires the suspension, revocation or rescission of all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome on the development of domestic energy sources as well as other Executive and Secretarial Orders (E.O. 14181, “Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California and Improve Disaster Response in Certain Areas” and E.O. 14219, “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s `Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative”, and Secretarial Order 3418 “Unleashing American Energy.” The agencies also state that the Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), which was issued months after the Biden-era rule went into effect, necessitated the review and modification of the rule.
Information about the four attacks:
Remove “blanket rule” for newly listed threatened species, FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0029
- Under the current rule in place, species that are listed as “threatened” are automatically given the same level of protection as “endangered” species, unless the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service comes up with a species-specific rule that contains protective regulations for that “threatened” species.
- Changes to this current version of the rule would deprive newly listed threatened animal and plant species from automatically receiving protections from killing, trapping, and other forms of prohibited “take.” Species now proposed for listing, like the Florida manatee, California spotted owl, Greater sage grouse, and Monarch butterfly could be left unprotected for years even after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalizes the listings.
This rule would roll back the 2024 updates and reinstate the 2019 Trump-era removal of the “blanket rule”. These changes would:
- Decrease protections for future species being listed or species that are recategorized in the future.
- Likely work in a negative cumulative fashion given the other proposed changes to the ESA, particularly as “economic considerations” may be proposed to count to what has long been prohibited “take” by people and economic development interests.
Suggested talking points for comments
- Removing protections under the “blanket rule” for species newly listed as “threatened” removes the opportunity for the species to receive additional support during a time it is already beginning to struggle.
- Would lead to a backlog of permit processing at a time when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already lost a significant amount of its staff due to the current administration’s reductions in force.
To read the proposed changes to the “blanket rule” and to submit comments click here.
Listing Endangered and Threatened Species and Designating Critical Habitat, FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0039
- This proposal violates the letter of the law by allowing “economic considerations” in decisions about whether to protect species that are scientifically shown to be at risk of extinction. With this rule, the federal government could decide against protecting an endangered species after considering lost revenue from prohibiting a golf course or hotel development to be built where the species lives.
- It also narrows the definition of “critical habitat” to exclude currently unoccupied but historic habitat. Historic habitat is vital for recovery of imperiled species, especially as the areas where they currently live shrink due to the rapidly changing climate and the chain effects of ongoing biodiversity loss.
This rule would roll back the 2024 updates and reinstate the 2019 Trump-era listing and critical habitat regulations. Key changes include:
- Narrowing how “foreseeable future” is interpreted for threatened species;
- Reinforcing language that makes it harder to designate unoccupied critical habitat; and
- Reinstating provisions that complicate listing decisions, delisting actions, and consideration of climate change impacts.
These changes would:
- Make it significantly harder to list species affected by climate change, drought, disease, and cumulative threats;
- Reduce the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ability to designate essential unoccupied habitat that is needed for recovery, especially crucial for wide-ranging species like wolves, grizzlies, salmon, sage grouse; and
- Restore regulatory language that courts have criticized as inconsistent with the Endangered Species Act. .
Suggested talking points for comments
- The Endangered Species Act requires using the best scientific and commercial data available; weakening listing criteria undermines that legal standard.
- Species threatened by climate change rely on future-oriented science, narrowing “foreseeable future” restricts the ability to act before a species goes extinct.
- Recovery often requires habitat beyond the small areas species currently occupy; restricting unoccupied critical habitat contradicts the purpose of the Endangered Species Act.
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service should keep the 2024 improvements rather than revert to weaker, outdated language.
Interagency Cooperation Regulations, FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0044
This proposal would revise the Endangered Species Act’s Section 7 interagency consultation regulations — the process that requires federal agencies to ensure their actions do not jeopardize listed species or destroy critical habitat. The rule would roll back the stronger 2024 Section 7 regulations and re-adopt the weaker 2019 Trump-era framework. It also narrows how effects on species and habitat can be analyzed. These changes directly weaken how Section 7 operates — the mechanism that prevents harmful federal projects (grazing permits, oil and gas drilling, dams, pipelines, timber sales) from further endangering wildlife.
Key changes include:
- Narrowing the definition of “environmental baseline,” limiting what background impacts can be considered during consultation;
- Tightening what counts as an impact “reasonably certain to occur,” raising the evidentiary threshold and excluding many indirect, cumulative, or climate-driven effects; and
- Reinstating 2019 provisions that made it harder to evaluate cumulative and landscape-scale harms from federal actions.
Section 7 is the backbone of the ESA. It prevents federal agencies from approving projects that would jeopardize species or destroy critical habitat. These revisions would:
- Make it easier for federal agencies to overlook harmful impacts from logging projects, pipelines, mining approvals, grazing permits, and other federal actions;
- Reduce the ability of scientists to consider real-world risks such as climate impacts, cumulative habitat fragmentation, and landscape-scale stressors; and
- Weaken the consultation process by limiting what counts as an “effect”, especially long-term or geographically dispersed ones.
Suggested talking points for comments:
- Section 7 consultation is the backbone of the Endangered Species Act; any weakening puts species survival at risk.
- Raising the threshold to prove “reasonably certain to occur” effects will erase legitimate scientific evidence and allow harmful actions to proceed without full review.
- The rollback reinstates 2019 rules that courts and scientists criticized as inconsistent with the Endangered Species Act.
- Climate impacts, cumulative habitat loss, and landscape-scale consequences must be included in consultations as they are essential to understanding jeopardy.
- The rule should be withdrawn; the Service should restore the stronger 2024 protections instead of narrowing them.
To read the proposed Rule and to submit comments click here.
Regulations for Designating Critical Habitat, FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0048
This rule would reinstate the 2020 exclusion rule (a Trump administration-era rule) that makes it easier to exclude areas from critical habitat designations. It reintroduces:
- A framework biased toward exclusion, especially for industry, energy development, ranching and private landowners;
- Requirements that the Service assign weight to economic impacts in ways that reduce habitat designations; and
- A more rigid process that can force exclusion even when scientific benefits of designation are high.
Critical habitat is often the only way species retain the physical and biological features essential for recovery. Bringing back the 2020 rule would:
- Make it easier for industry to pressure the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service into excluding habitat;
- Shift decisions away from science and toward economic considerations;
- Reduce the size and effectiveness of critical habitat designations; and
- Increase fragmentation and undermine recovery planning.
Suggested talking points for comments:
- The 2020 rule improperly elevated economic and political considerations over the biological needs of species. Reinstating it contradicts the Endangered Species Act’s purpose: to conserve ecosystems and recover species, not to reduce protections for industry convenience.
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must base exclusions on clear scientific evidence, not speculative economic concerns.
- Habitat loss is the primary driver of extinction; weakening critical habitat tools directly harms recovery prospects.
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should restore the more balanced 2016 policy or adopt a stronger science-forward framework.
To read the proposed Rule and to submit a comment click here,
