How the Trump Administration has yet again hobbled the Endangered Species Act.
The Trump administration has officially finalized a rule stripping habitat destruction from the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In a joint announcement by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce, officials rolled back a 40-year conservation standard. The rule relies heavily on a Supreme Court decision in 2024 that claimed that the old definition of “harm” constituted “federal overreach”. This now means that activities such as logging, mining, and oil drilling can legally alter critical habitats, provided they do not directly kill or injure an animal on the spot.
Harming habitat
For five decades, the word “harm” within the ESA’s prohibition against the “take” of endangered species was clear to scientists and courts alike. It meant that if you bulldozed a forest, dammed a river, or leveled a nesting ground to the point where an endangered animal could no longer feed, breed, or find shelter, you were harming it. This common-sense integration of ecology and law was famously upheld by the Supreme Court in a 1995 court case, which protected the old-growth forests needed by the northern spotted owl.
The new rule completely upends this framework. It extinguishes nearly all habitat-based protections under Section 9 of the ESA. For example, loggers could cut down trees containing endangered bird nests, provided the birds are not physically in the tree at the moment the chainsaw hits the bark.
To justify this, the administration argues that the original 1973 statutory text never intended for “harm” to encompass indirect ecosystem modification.
This is ridiculous. The ESA was largely written by legendary ecologist and conservation scientist Dr Lee Talbot, who was virtually given carte blanche at the time to write conservation laws such as the ESA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). This is one reason why these laws have held up for so long – these are intrinsically science-based and consider animals as part of the ecosystem.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed this change returns the law to its “original intent” while promising to use “Gold Standard Science” to protect wildlife.
But the fact that you cannot decouple an animal from the ecosystem it relies on to survive is inshrined in these laws. Both the ESA and MMPA explicitly move beyond single-species management to enshrine the protection of entire ecosystems and the vital roles wildlife play within them. The ESA declares in its very first section that its primary purpose is to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered and threatened species depend may be conserved. This is achieved primarily through the designation of “critical habitat” necessary for breeding, feeding, and sheltering. Similarly, the MMPA was pioneering in its shift toward ecosystem-based management, stating that marine mammals are resources of great international significance and that they must not be permitted to diminish below their “optimum sustainable population” and must be maintained as “a significant functioning element of the ecosystem of which they are a part.” Crucially, the MMPA mandates that these species be protected and kept above these levels to maintain the health and stability of the marine ecosystem, legally recognizing that animals are not isolated units but essential components governing the functional balance of their environments.
“If a species, ecosystem, or ecological process is destroyed, future generations will be denied its use.”
Habitat destruction remains the primary driver of biodiversity loss and species extinction globally. Restricting the legal definition of harm to immediate, direct physical trauma ignores foundational ecological realities. This regulatory shift comes directly on the heels of the administration’s March 2026 decision to exempt all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operations from ESA restrictions, pushing the critically endangered Rice’s whale closer to extinction (with only about 51 individuals remaining, this species is one of the most endangered mammals in the US).
What happens next?
This rule change will not go uncontested. A broad coalition of conservation groups have already announced plans to file immediate legal challenges.
However, environmental law experts warn that the legal landscape has fundamentally shifted. After a recent Supreme Court decision, federal agencies can no longer rely on the so-called “Chevron deference” to allow their scientists and managers to interpret a law to best achieve conservation goals.
Chevron was a legal doctrine established by the US Supreme Court that stood for over 40 years. It required federal courts to defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous law. For example, if Congress passed a vague law, the expert agency enforcing it (e.g. EPA, USFWS or NOAA) was entrusted to decide how to implement it, as long as their interpretation was rational. However, the MAGA-stacked Supreme Court overturned this long-standing doctrine in 2024.
Any legal challenge to the ESA ruling will go back to the same conservative majority Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court then approves this narrow definition, it could permanently prevent future administrations from restoring habitat protections for endangered species.
The best hope is that the November elections will bring about an unassailable Democratic majority that can pass a veto-proof bill that clearly establishes what anyone who has taken an ecology class knows – that protecting habitat and ecosystems is vital for the conservation of species.
