Tuesday, 28 July 2026, 3:51
The Trump administration finalized a significant rollback of the Endangered Species Act on Friday, redefining the term 'harm' to exclude habitat destruction. This move, celebrated by industry as a boost for economic growth, directly threatens California's rich biodiversity and its hundreds of protected species, from the California condor to the desert tortoise.
The new rule narrows the definition of 'harm' under the ESA, which for decades included actions that injure or kill wildlife as well as the destruction of their critical habitats. Now, destroying those habitats is no longer considered illegal under the act. The longstanding law had long prohibited “habitat modification or degradation” because it could harm or kill endangered animals by impacting their ability to breed and find food or shelter. That definition of harm was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1995 ruling. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued the previous definition 'interfered with private property rights' and 'turned routine activity into a regulatory trap.' This decision aligns with the administration's broader deregulatory agenda, prioritizing development over conservation. The change was first proposed in April 2025 and environmentalists fought unsuccessfully to block it. Administration officials said they were returning the law to its original intent, following a 2024 Supreme Court decision that limited the authority of federal agencies to interpret environmental statutes passed by Congress. The administration said it was making its move to speed up approvals for projects that would have been slowed under previous rules of the road, which it described as outdated. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added in a statement that the new rule would benefit fishermen who suffered from “overly broad and burdensome regulations.” The Interior and Commerce departments insisted narrower “core protections” for endangered species would still be enacted, adding their definition of the bedrock environmental law would prevent “actions that directly injure or kill listed wildlife.” However, environmental groups will challenge that narrower definition, pointing to the 1995 Supreme Court case, which upheld the broader definition of harm, including habitat destruction. But if legal challenges to the Trump administration’s reversal make it up to the Supreme Court again, environmentalists will be facing a far more conservative court.
In addition to redefining harm, the Trump administration also rolled back protections for species listed as “threatened” — at risk but a step below endangered. Under prior regulations, threatened species automatically received the same protections as endangered species. Now, the administration says it will evaluate protections for species newly designated as threatened on a case-by-case basis. The administration also made it harder to designate areas as protected “critical habitat” for endangered species, a move expected to ease industrial development. Specifically, the administration said it will newly consider economic and national security impacts of a potential critical habitat designation and exclude areas from such designations if doing so will not cause a species to go extinct. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement, “For too long, the Endangered Species Act has been weaponized to stop almost any new project in America, driving up costs for families, weakening our competitiveness, and undermining our national security.”
California is home to more than 6,700 native plant and animal species, with nearly 300 protected under the ESA. These include amphibians like the tiger salamander and Yosemite toad; birds such as the California condor and northern spotted owl; fish such as the Little Kern golden trout and Santa Ana sucker; insects such as Franklin's bumble bee and Mission blue butterfly; mammals such as the gray wolf and Santa Catalina Island fox; and reptiles including the desert tortoise and green sea turtle. The rollback is poised to impact these species directly, as it removes legal barriers to farming, mining, logging, and drilling in their habitats. A report from Earthjustice warns that expanded oil drilling off the California coast could threaten five marine species: humpback whales, sea otters, leatherback sea turtles, marbled murrelets, and wild salmon.
The decision has immediate implications for specific regions. For example, the Trump administration recently approved a controversial plan to use an old oil pipeline to pump water from the Mojave Desert, a project that environmentalists say threatens desert tortoise habitats. The rollback also clears the way for development in areas like the Los Angeles Basin, where the El Segundo blue butterfly lost 90% of its habitat to airport and housing construction before ESA protections helped its population recover from 1,000 to over 120,000. In Buena Park and surrounding Orange County, the rule could affect local wetlands and coastal habitats that support species like the green sea turtle.
The Endangered Species Act, enacted in 1973, is widely credited with saving iconic species from extinction, including the California condor, bald eagle, and humpback whale. The condor, which nearly disappeared in the 1980s due to habitat loss and other factors, saw its population rebound to several hundred thanks to ESA-mandated recovery programs. A handful of California species recoveries have been championed as success stories under the Endangered Species Act, including southern sea otters, peregrine falcons, humpback whales, bald eagles and green sea turtles. This rollback marks the most significant weakening of the act in decades, following previous Trump administration efforts to limit environmental regulations, including a review of the California Coastal Commission and opposition to Pacific Coast drilling from Governor Gavin Newsom and other West Coast leaders. The Trump administration has attempted to claw back the Endangered Species Act throughout President Donald Trump’s first and second administration, with varying levels of success. Earlier this year, several high-ranking Trump officials, including Burgum, voted to gut longstanding Endangered Species Act regulations in the Gulf of Mexico for the critically endangered Rice’s whale, exempting all oil and gas drilling from the federal law. And last year, Interior and Commerce proposed restoring rules from the first Trump administration that stripped safeguards for plants and animals threatened by human development and a warming planet. However, some of those changes were recently struck down in federal court. Habitat destruction is the biggest cause of extinction, according to wildlife advocates. “Habitat loss is the number one cause of extinction,” Gib Brogan, senior campaign director at Oceana, said in a statement. “When you remove habitat protections, you remove one of the law’s most important safeguards.”
Environmental groups, including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, have vowed to challenge the rule in court. “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,” said Kristen Boyles, attorney for the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, in a statement. “Let’s be clear: there is no support for the Trump administration’s rule – no scientific support, no legal support, no public support. We will see the Trump administration in court.” Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club, called the decision “an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats.” “For more than four decades, the definition of ‘harm’ recognized a simple truth: if you destroy the places wildlife need to survive, you are putting species on a path to extinction,” Greuel said in a statement. Aaron Weiss, the executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, called it 'one of the most horrific attempts to harm wildlife in American history and a gift to the oil barons and foreign mining companies.' As legal battles unfold, California's unique wildlife faces an uncertain future, with habitats that were once protected now open to development. Residents and conservation advocates are urged to stay informed and support efforts to defend the state's natural heritage.
