2025 has been a difficult year for the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The new administration and Congress are working quickly to weaken the effectiveness of the Act, one of the most popular and successful environmental laws in the nation.
In May, the Department of the Interior proposed changing the way it defines “harm” under the Act, potentially excluding from regulation a whole host of actions, which could result in harm to species. The administration has also cut both funding and staffing for ESA implementation. In addition, Congress is also considering a number of legislative changes to the Act, leading Maine Audubon to deliver our largest-ever petition to our federal delegation asking them to protect the Endangered Species Act.
Even more changes are on their way. In November, the Department of the Interior proposed four separate changes related to how they implement 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. Details on each of the proposals are below.
Maine Audubon joins wildlife organizations across the country to oppose these proposals. In fact, in order to help amplify our voices, we’re joining organizations from all over the country—including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and many more—to try to reach one million names submitted in opposition to these proposals. Sign our petition here. In our official comments, we’ll share our total number of signers (no names or personal information will be shared) with the national push to one million.
Comments are due on December 22. Below is a summary of the individual proposals and how they may impact species in Maine.
1. Threatened Species Protections (“4(d) Blanket Rule”)
This rule would eliminate the “blanket 4(d) rule”. This long-standing policy automatically gives newly listed threatened species the same protections as endangered species unless a species-specific rule is written. The proposal says the Fish & Wildlife Service will:
- Remove the blanket rule entirely, and;
- Only issue species-specific 4(d) rules, which could reduce protections depending on what the Service chooses to include.
Until species-specific rules are written, existing blanket protections technically continue, but the direction of the rule is toward phasing them out.
Impact in Maine: The blanket 4(d) rule is one of the fastest and most effective tools for giving threatened species immediate protection. Removing it means newly-listed threatened species in Maine, including, potentially, the Tricolored Bat and Monarch Butterfly, will not be automatically protected from killing, harming, or habitat destruction.
2. Section 7 Interagency Consultation Regulations
This proposal would revise the Endangered Species Act’s Section 7 interagency consultation regulations—the process that requires federal agencies to ensure their actions do not jeopardize listed species or destroy critical habitat. The rule would roll back the stronger 2024 Section 7 regulations and re-adopt the 2019 Trump-era framework, which weakened interagency cooperation in a number of ways, including by narrowing how effects on species and habitat can be analyzed.
Impact in Maine: Section 7 is the backbone of the ESA: it prevents federal agencies from approving projects that would jeopardize species or destroy critical habitat. Consultations in Maine are often triggered when a project requires a federal permit, such as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit, for activities like dredging or filling in or near a waterbody. Returning to the 2019 rules would substantially limit the instances in which agencies like the Army Corps must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service due to the presence of a threatened or endangered species. Limiting agency consultation makes Maine’s federal threatened or endangered species such as the Northern Long-eared Bat, Red Knot, and Rusty-patched Bumble Bee more susceptible to the impacts of new development.
3. Critical Habitat Exclusion Rule (Section 4(b)(2))
This rule would reinstate the 2020 Trump Administration exclusion rule that makes it easier to exclude areas from critical habitat designations. It reintroduces:
- A framework biased toward exclusion, especially for industry, energy development, ranching and private landowners;
- Requirements that the Service assign weight to economic impacts in ways that reduce habitat designations, and;
- A more rigid process that can force exclusion even when scientific benefits of designation are high.
Impact in Maine: Perhaps the largest potential change from this proposal is the shift in decisions away from science and toward economic considerations. There are economic impacts when taking action to protect species, but, historically, our nation has prioritized biological considerations above economic ones when it comes to the extinction of species.
For example, the recovery of the Bald Eagle is one of the biggest successes of the Act. The pesticide DDT is widely known as a primary factor for the population’s demise and because of protections afforded to the Bald Eagle under the ESA, the government banned DDT. This may not have happened, however, had the new rules been in place at the time of the Bald Eagles’ listing. Perhaps the cost of saving the Bald Eagle would have been deemed too high in the 1970s and the USFWS would have succumbed to pressure from the agriculture lobby.
4. Listing & Critical Habitat Rules (50 CFR part 424)
This rule would roll back the 2024 updates and reinstate the 2019 Trump-era listing and critical habitat regulations. Key shifts include:
- Narrowing how “foreseeable future” is interpreted for threatened species;
- Reinforcing language that makes it harder to designate currently unoccupied critical habitat;
- Reinstating provisions that complicate listing decisions, delisting actions, and; consideration of climate change impacts.
Impact in Maine: This proposal would make it significantly harder to list species affected by climate change, drought, disease, and cumulative threats. Climate change threatens all species in Maine, and currently-listed species like Red Knot, Roseate Tern, and several species of sea turtles, may be at special risk. Species across the world are experiencing increasing impacts from climate change, and understanding and mitigating future impacts is essential to species protection.
Thank you for your continued support of the Endangered Species Act.
