Trump’s Endangered Species Act Rollbacks Across Two Terms

The Trump administration’s rollbacks of the Endangered Species Act span two terms and reach nearly every part of the law: how species get listed, how their habitat is protected, how federal agencies review projects that might harm them, and, most dramatically, whether entire industries can be exempted from the statute altogether. Some changes have been finalized, some are proposed, some have been struck down by federal courts, and one, the March 2026 exemption of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activity, is unprecedented in the law’s history.

Here is what has been done, what has been blocked, and what remains open.

The 2019–2020 Framework That Set the Template

The current fight builds on a package of rules finalized on August 12, 2019, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries. Those rules allowed economic factors to be weighed alongside science in listing decisions, a departure from the statute’s requirement that listings rest “solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available.”¹ They also eliminated the “blanket rule” under Section 4(d), which had automatically extended endangered-level protections to newly listed threatened species. Under the new approach, each threatened species would need its own tailored rule.²

The 2019 package also narrowed the interagency consultation process. Federal agencies had to analyze only effects “reasonably certain to occur,” replacing a broader “likely” standard. And a project would count as destroying critical habitat only if it diminished the value of that habitat “as a whole,” which left room for localized damage.¹ A 2020 companion rule spelled out when areas could be excluded from critical habitat because of economic, national security, or other impacts.²

What the Biden Administration Reversed, and What It Left in Place

On March 28, 2024, the Biden administration finalized three rules that reinstated the blanket 4(d) protections for threatened species, removed references to economic impacts from listing decisions, and made it easier to designate critical habitat in areas where a species is no longer found. The rulemaking drew roughly 468,000 public comments.³ Federal courts also restored protections for gray wolves, and the administration reversed a 2020 decision that had opened millions of acres of northern spotted owl habitat to potential logging.⁴

But the Biden rules did not fully undo the 2019 changes. Several first-term consultation provisions remained on the books, a gap that would become the subject of a major federal court ruling in 2026.⁴

The Second Term Opens With an Energy Emergency

Within hours of returning to office on January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order declaring a “National Energy Emergency” under the National Emergencies Act. The order directed federal agencies to use “all possible authorities, including emergency authorities, to expedite the adjudication of Federal permits” for projects deemed essential to the economy or national security.⁵ It also required the Endangered Species Committee to meet at least quarterly to review actions related to fossil energy development.⁶

By April 2025, the Interior Department had adopted an “expedited ESA Section 7 interagency consultation process” for fossil fuel projects. Legal scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, questioned whether the emergency declaration could legally trigger provisions designed for “acts of God, disasters, or casualties.”⁷

Rescinding the Definition of “Harm”

On April 16, 2025, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed what conservation groups have called the single most consequential regulatory change of the second term: rescinding the definition of “harm” under the ESA. Since 1975, “harm” has included “significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife,” making it illegal to destroy the forests, wetlands, and waterways that endangered species depend on. The administration proposed limiting “harm” to an “affirmative act directed immediately against a particular animal.”⁸

The practical effect would be to remove the regulatory mechanism that prevents mining, logging, bulldozing, and pollution from wiping out habitat.⁹ The administration declined to conduct an environmental impact analysis for the change.¹⁰ A coalition of 66 organizations submitted comments through Earthjustice opposing the proposal, arguing it lacked “any basis in science or law” and conflicted with a landmark Supreme Court ruling and three decades of precedent.¹¹ The rule remains a proposal and has not been finalized.

The November 2025 Regulatory Package

On November 19, 2025, the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries proposed four additional rules to restore the first-term framework across listings, habitat, threatened species protections, and consultation.¹² The proposals would:

Allow officials to conduct and release cost-benefit analyses alongside listing decisions, reversing Biden-era language that barred such considerations.¹³
Eliminate the blanket 4(d) rule so that newly listed threatened species receive no automatic protection.²
Overhaul critical habitat designation to prioritize “economic impact, the impact on national security, and any other relevant impact,” and to mandatorily exclude areas where economic costs outweigh benefits, so long as exclusion would not cause extinction.⁶
Return the interagency consultation process to the 2019 framework, limiting the scope of effects agencies must consider to those “reasonably certain to occur.”¹²

The public comment period closed on December 22, 2025.⁶ The administration cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision as justification. Legal scholars have disputed that reasoning, noting Loper Bright does not require agencies to rescind existing regulations and that rescissions remain discretionary actions subject to the Administrative Procedure Act.¹⁴

Species the Changes Would Affect

The Center for Biological Diversity identified seven species it said would be pushed toward extinction by the proposed rules. Among them: the Florida panther, with fewer than 200 individuals remaining; the monarch butterfly, whose population has declined roughly 90 percent; and the wolverine, with fewer than 300 individuals in the lower 48 states.¹⁵ The group warned that a prohibition on designating critical habitat for species threatened by climate change would especially harm the saltmarsh sparrow and the sunflower sea star.¹⁶

The God Squad Exemption for Gulf Oil and Gas

On March 31, 2026, the Endangered Species Committee voted unanimously to exempt all oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico from the ESA. Chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and composed of senior cabinet officials, the committee (informally known as the “God Squad”) had not convened in more than 30 years and had met only three times in its history since being established in 1978. It had never granted an exemption for an entire industry, and never on national security grounds.¹⁷¹⁸

The National Security Rationale

The exemption was triggered by a March 13, 2026, memorandum from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declaring that environmental litigation against Gulf oil and gas operations posed a threat to national security. Hegseth argued that lawsuits challenging biological opinions created a “substantial risk” those opinions could be vacated, potentially disrupting Gulf production. He tied the claim to the war with Iran and challenges to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. “Disruptions to Gulf oil production doesn’t hurt just us, it benefits our adversaries,” Hegseth stated, arguing reduced production would boost oil revenues for Iran and Russia and undermine U.S. sanctions.¹⁹²⁰ Hegseth acknowledged that Gulf operations did not face an imminent halt, but argued it was “necessary for national security to eliminate the threat of vacatur, rather than waiting to see if it materializes.”²¹

Species Covered

The exemption covers at least 20 endangered and threatened species, including sea turtles, Gulf sturgeon, whooping cranes, corals, and the Rice’s whale. Rice’s whale is among the most critically endangered mammals on Earth, with an estimated 51 individuals remaining. Its population never recovered from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A 2025 National Marine Fisheries Service analysis had concluded that the Gulf oil and gas program was likely to harm several species through vessel strikes and oil spills.¹⁷ Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law School, said that “if Trump is successful here, he could be the first person in history to knowingly extirpate a species from the face of the earth.”²⁰

The committee’s order stated that existing avoidance and minimization measures for species like Rice’s whale “shall continue to be implemented,” while also declaring that other ESA provisions “do not apply” and that the committee “need not specify any mitigation and enhancement measures.” Environmental lawyers noted the contradiction: it is unclear how protective measures can be enforced when the activities are fully exempt from the statute that mandates them.²¹ The exemption also relieved operators of NOAA’s 2025 “reasonable and prudent alternative” requirements, which had included real-time whale-tracking technology.²²

Legal Challenges

The vote triggered lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:

Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum (No. 1:26-cv-00940) alleges the national security determination lacks a rational basis and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.
NRDC v. Burgum (No. 1:26-cv-01116) claims both the determination and the exemption are “arbitrary and capricious.”
Healthy Gulf v. Burgum (No. 1:26-cv-01118) argues the committee exceeded its statutory authority and issued an impermissibly broad exemption.

A fourth suit, filed April 2, 2026, by a coalition including Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Friends of the Earth, and the Sierra Club through Earthjustice, followed.¹⁸ The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the cases on April 17, 2026.²³ An earlier emergency injunction to block the committee meeting itself was denied on March 27, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who cited jurisdictional concerns under the ESA.²⁴

A Federal Court Strikes Down Key First-Term Rules

On March 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California vacated four provisions of the ESA’s Section 7 consultation regulations, ruling they “contradict the text of the Endangered Species Act and undercut the efficacy of Section 7 consultation.”²⁵ The provisions had originated in the 2019 rules and survived into the 2024 Biden revisions. The ruling ordered immediate reversion to pre-2019 standards.

The court struck down:

The “reasonably certain” consultation threshold, holding that the ESA requires agencies to examine “likely” effects and that the higher standard impermissibly excluded relevant evidence.²⁶
The “as a whole” habitat standard, which the court found allowed piecemeal destruction and “inappropriately narrows the scope of the statutory protection.”²⁷
Non-binding mitigation, holding that mitigation must be binding to satisfy the ESA’s mandate to “insure against harm to species or habitat.”²⁶
The removal of re-initiation authority, which had stripped Fish and Wildlife and NOAA Fisheries of their ability to unilaterally reopen consultations when new harm was discovered.²⁶

The case, brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, and others represented by Earthjustice, closed what the group described as a seven-year legal fight to restore consultation protections to their pre-Trump status.²⁸

The Congressional Track

More than 60 pieces of legislation targeting the ESA have been introduced since the 119th Congress convened in January 2025, according to a Defenders of Wildlife tracker.²⁹ The most ambitious is H.R. 1897, the ESA Amendments Act, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas. It would codify many of the administration’s executive actions, including limits on habitat protections, mandatory economic and national security analyses for listings, extended listing deadlines, fast-tracked delisting, increased allowable “take” of threatened species, and narrower critical habitat designations.³⁰

A vote on H.R. 1897 was originally scheduled for April 22, 2026, but House Republican leadership pulled the bill from the floor after bipartisan opposition. Republican members from tourism-dependent Florida districts, including Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Kat Cammack, expressed reservations about the bill’s potential to facilitate oil and gas activity in sensitive areas. Over 275 organizations signed a letter opposing the legislation.²⁹ Sixteen state attorneys general, led by Massachusetts and California, urged Congress not to bring the bill to a vote.³¹

Two other bills have advanced. H.R. 845 would mandate the delisting of gray wolves in 44 states and bar judicial review; it passed the House in December 2025 on a 211–204 vote. H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act, would exempt the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from reinitiating ESA consultations regarding forest plans; it passed the House in January 2025.³²

Where Things Stand

The legal and regulatory picture is fractured. The April 2025 proposal to rescind the definition of “harm” and the four November 2025 proposed rules remain pending and have not been finalized. The blanket 4(d) rule for threatened species is effectively suspended: a federal judge in Montana stayed a lawsuit challenging it in August 2025 to let the Fish and Wildlife Service proceed with a rulemaking to rescind it, with a final rule targeted for late 2026.⁶ Judge Tigar’s March 2026 ruling vacating four consultation provisions stands, reverting those standards to pre-2019 versions nationwide. The Gulf oil and gas exemption is in effect but faces consolidated legal challenges in the D.C. federal court, with no preliminary injunction ruling reported.²³ H.R. 1897 remains in legislative limbo after being pulled from the House floor, though its proponents have signaled they will bring it back.

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