Attorney General Bonta Files Lawsuits Challenging Trump Administration’s Attempt to Weaken Endangered Species Act Protections

OAKLAND - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today is co-leading a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing two lawsuits against the Trump Administration, one against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and one against the FWS and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (collectively, the Services) over recent revisions to key regulations implementing the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The rules significantly weaken safeguards for our nation's most vulnerable species by drastically reducing protections for listed fish and wildlife species' habitat; establishing an unlawful process for excluding areas from critical habitat designations; and curtailing the ESA's protections for newly listed threatened fish, wildlife, and plant species. Two of these regulatory rollbacks would reinstate the same unlawful ESA regulations adopted under the first Trump Administration, which were challenged in court before being reversed by the Biden Administration. In today's lawsuits, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition argue that the rules violate the ESA, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

"Caring for our wildlife and our environment is part of caring for our future, yet President Trump seems to care only for himself and his industry friends. The Trump Administration has continuously sought to put our ecosystems in danger, which is why we continue to take them to court," said Attorney General Bonta. "For over half a century, the ESA has stood as a bipartisan example of what it means to protect an irreplaceable part of our planet, but these new rules attempt to destroy longstanding and integral regulatory protections and open the door to further species decline and possible extinctions. Today, we are taking action to protect our environment and all those with whom we share the planet."

BACKGROUND

The ESA is one of the nation's landmark environmental protection statutes and is vitally important for protecting hundreds of critically imperiled species and their habitats. For over 50 years, the ESA has protected thousands of iconic and threatened species, including the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and humpback whale. It is also responsible for many success stories within California, most notably the survival and recovery of the California condor and brown pelican. Enacted under the Nixon Administration in 1973, the ESA is intended - as the Supreme Court has described it - "to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost." The Trump Administration's new rules would dramatically weaken current ESA protections and significantly reduce federal ESA enforcement, putting these imperiled species and their habitats at risk of extinction.

As a result of the three rules, known as the Harm Rule, the Habitat Exclusion Rule, and the 4(d) Rule, the Trump Administration has seriously undermined various protections for endangered and threatened species. Specifically, the Harm Rule alters the definition of the "harm" that the ESA prohibits, drastically weakening the ESA's ability to protect against destruction of listed species' breeding and feeding grounds, pollution or draining of critical water sources, or degradation of habitats, even if those actions lead to the death or injury of these species. The Habitat Exclusion Rule allows - and in some cases requires - the FWS to exclude areas from critical habitat designations based on third party costs and regulatory burdens and other non-biological considerations, thus limiting the FWS's ability to protect and recover imperiled species by reducing the extent of critical habitat that is protected. The 4(d) Rule repeals longstanding automatic regulatory protections for newly listed threatened species, instead relying on the FWS to adopt species-specific regulations with no requirement or timeframe for doing so, leaving threatened species vulnerable to further declines. The 4(d) Rule also requires FWS to consider economic impacts prior to promulgating such species-specific rules.

In today's lawsuits, being filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the multistate coalition argues that the court should vacate and set aside the Trump Administration's rules, which significantly weaken protections for our nation's most imperiled species, because they:

• Are contrary to law under the APA and ESA, as the rules ignore the plain language, purposes, structure, and legislative history of the ESA; numerous binding judicial precedents interpreting the ESA; and the law's overall precautionary approach to protecting imperiled species and habitats.
• Are arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion under the APA because the Services do not provide a reasoned explanation for the changes.
• Violate the APA and NEPA because the Services failed to consider and disclose the significant environmental effects of the rules prior to promulgating them.

Attorney General Rob Bonta is co-leading the lawsuits alongside Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, and Washington Attorney General Nick Brown. They are joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.

Copies of both complaints will be linked to the first sentence of this press release when they become available.