Defenders Intervenes to Protect Biden ESA Regulations

Defenders today filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia that challenges the Biden administration’s 2024 Endangered Species Act regulations. The 2024 regulations reversed some of the damaging regulations issued by the Trump administration in 2019, which Defenders previously challenged in court. The Trump administration has announced its intention to further revise the regulations, and Defenders’ presence in the case seeks to ensure that imperiled species remain protected in the interim.

“In this lawsuit, extractive industries have invited the administration to dismantle bedrock conservation laws for the sake of corporate profits,” said Ellen Richmond, senior attorney at Defenders. “Imperiled wildlife belongs to all of us, and these public resources should not be sacrificed for private gain.”

In this lawsuit, industry parties seek to reinstate the 2019 ESA regulations, including the 2019 rescission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s “blanket 4(d) rule” that automatically extends section 9 take protections otherwise applicable only to endangered species to threatened species. Defenders’ intervention is essential to ensure that species’ interests are represented, particularly given that the current administration has announced that it agrees with the industry plaintiffs that the 2024 regulations should be withdrawn, and the 2019 versions reinstated.

The lawsuit, if successful, would damage the ESA by:

• Removing protections for threatened species by eliminating the ESA’s “blanket 4(d) rule.”
• Limiting the scope of federal agency consultation with scientific experts, under the ESA’s section 7, on actions that may imperil the species that federal agencies are supposed to protect.
• Erecting barriers against designating unoccupied land as part of a listed species critical habitat. 

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