Green groups sue over Trump rollback of habitat protections for endangered species

Energy & Environment Green groups sue over Trump rollback of habitat protections for endangered species Comments: by Rachel Frazin - 07/14/26 3:19 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Rachel Frazin - 07/14/26 3:19 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Environmental advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its move last week to roll back protections for endangered species’ habitats.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Columbia Riverkeeper, Conservation Law Foundation, Conservation Northwest, Friends of the Wild Swan, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club, Swan View Coalition and WildEarth Guardians filed the lawsuit.

They argue that the Trump administration’s move “discards a longstanding and critical regulatory protection for imperiled wildlife based upon an irrational and unsupported interpretation” of the Endangered Species Act.

The groups said in court that the move would “undermine the Act’s extraordinary record of success in preventing the extinction of and recovering threatened and endangered species.”

Last week, the Trump administration took away a key protection for endangered and threatened species. In particular, it removed explicit prohibitions against changing an endangered or threatened species’s habitat to the point that it “actually kills or injures wildlife” by preventing food, shelter or breeding.

It said that it was doing so to speed up approvals for projects that would have been slowed under previous regulations, adding that the rules created burdens for businesses.

Environmental groups, however, say that the move will harm vulnerable animals and plants.

“Preventing harm to wildlife by protecting where they live, eat, and sleep is the foundation of the Endangered Species Act,” said a statement from Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is representing the conservation groups.

“The Trump Administration repeal violates the core purpose of the statute and decades of legal precedent, including from the U.S. Supreme Court. Now more than ever, imperiled species from salmon to marbled murrelets to grizzly bears need habitat protection to survive and recover,” Boyles said.