On July 10, 2026, the Trump administration finalized a rule repealing a key provision of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that protected not only endangered species but also their critical habitats. This change opens habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining, and other uses.

For the past 50 years, the ESA included a broad definition of “harm” that encompassed habitat destruction, a definition upheld by the Supreme Court in 1995 to protect old-growth forests vital to endangered spotted owls. Despite widespread public support for maintaining strong ESA protections and hundreds of thousands of public comments opposing the change, the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce reframed the habitat protections as “regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights” and announced the rollback.

The ESA has historically safeguarded over 1,700 species and their habitats, preventing 99% of listed species from extinction, including the bald eagle. Environmental advocates sharply criticized the rollback: Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles stated, “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.” Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the plan “a death sentence for wolverines, monarch butterflies, Florida manatees and so many other animals and plants that desperately need our help.”

According to a 2019 assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), roughly 1 million species are threatened with extinction, including about 40% of amphibians and a third of reef-forming corals, marine mammals, and sharks. Additionally, about 80% of insect species remain unidentified, with some disappearing before they can be named.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the change, accusing federal agencies of abusing the ESA to “obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” and said the protections had “turned routine activity into a regulatory trap.”

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