The Endangered Species Act, or ESA, is our most effective and beloved wildlife-protection law. Passed in 1973, the ESA provides protection for thousands of vulnerable species and the habitats they need to survive. The Act has been an incredible success: it has prevented the extinction of more than 99% of the species under its protection and facilitated the return of icons like the Bald Eagle and the American Alligator. However, despite its success, the ESA has long been targeted by politicians who oppose goals to protect wildlife.
Challenges to the Endangered Species Act have ramped up since the inauguration of the Trump administration and the seating of the 119th Congress in Washington D.C. in January 2025. Maine Audubon, our members and supporters, and thousands more around the country are working to oppose efforts to weaken the ESA.
Friday May 15 is Endangered Species Day. To recognize this occasion we’re celebrating federally-endangered species in Maine (on social media!) and summarizing efforts to weaken the ESA in Washington below.
[Important note: the federal Endangered Species Act and the Maine Endangered Species Act are two completely separate laws. This post is about the federal Endangered Species Act.]
The Trump administration:
May 2025 – The administration proposed to change the definition of “harm” in the ESA to mean “immediate injury” rather than things like impacting habitat. For decades, the Supreme Court-backed understanding has been that “harm” to a species listed under the Endangered Species Act meant not just direct impacts but also “changes in habitat that hurt the endangered animals.” The administration proposed to rescind the existing definition of “harm” and replace it with a much narrower definition. This definition is functionally in effect today. Read more on our blog here.
Dec. 2025 – Later that year, the administration proposed four additional changes to how it implements the ESA. Some of the proposals are new, and some of them are changes made late in the first Trump administration that were removed during the Biden administration. The proposed changes touched on protections for Threatened species; requirements for consultation between agencies; Critical Habitat; and rules for listing. Read the details in our blog here.
Throughout 2025 – The administration fired hundreds of federal staff working in jobs related to Endangered Species Act compliance as part of DOGE cuts and other federal workforce reductions. It’s difficult to get a precise number for the total staff lost whose jobs related to ESA management, but it’s certainly in the hundreds at least. The firings are a serious challenge to implementation of the Act, “dwindling the office to a skeleton crew is almost certain to increase the [US Fish and Wildlife Service’s] backlog and hamstring the agency’s ability to issue any endangered species findings within the required time frame.”
March 2026 – The Endangered Species Act contains a rarely-used provision that permits the Interior Secretary to call together an Endangered Species Committee, aka the “God Squad,” of federal officials to provide exemptions from the Act in extraordinary circumstances. In March, the administration made the unprecedented decision to call together the “God Squad” and provide the oil and gas industry with a blanket exemption from Endangered Species Act compliance. The decisions, made quickly and without required public input, will seriously imperil wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, including several endangered sea turtles and the Rice’s Whale.
Congress:
ESA Amendments Act – For years, Arkansas Representative Bruce Westerman has sponsored legislation to dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act in a number of ways. In this Congress it’s known as HR 1897, the ESA Amendments Act. The bill passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee in Dec. 2025 with the help of Maine’s Representative Jared Golden, and was scheduled for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives in April 2026. However, pushback from hundreds of Maine responders to our Action Alert and thousands more from around the country resulted in the bill being pulled from consideration in Congress. It’s a major win for wildlife, and we’ll continue to monitor this bill and others.
Northern Right Whale Legislation – On May 1, Maine Representative Jared Golden introduced legislation to extend the date for the nation’s lobster and Jonah crab fisheries to adopt safer fishing gear. In 2022, Congress passed a law requiring the industry to adopt gear that would reduce entanglement threats to the critically-endangered North Atlantic Right Whale by 2028. Golden’s bill, HR 8509, would extend the date of adoption to 2035, without any explanation or additional assistance to facilitate protections for whales. Maine Audubon opposes this legislation, and has joined more than 160 organizations in calling on Congress to provide funds to the fishing industry to support a transition to safer gear.
These are challenging times for the Endangered Species Act and for wildlife across the country, but we won’t give up. Thousands of Mainers have spoken up in defense of the ESA since the beginning of 2025, and Maine Audubon is dedicated to the protection of this vital law for many more Endangered Species Days to come.
