Butte, MT — On Wednesday, conservation groups sued to overturn a Trump administration rule that leaves threatened wildlife with no certain, meaningful protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Read the complaint here.

Plaintiffs represented by Earthjustice — including the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, National Parks Conservation Association, Humane World for Animals (formerly called Humane Society of the United States), Conservation Council for Hawai‘i and Save the Manatee Club — argue that federal officials ran afoul of the ESA when they issued this rule, since it cuts against the very purpose of the law. For decades, agencies have taken a “blanket” approach to aiding species designated as “threatened” by automatically affording them the same protections as species listed as “endangered.” Like preventative health care, this “blanket 4(d) rule” meant to proactively bolster imperiled wildlife before it was too late.

The Trump administration rescinded this rule, replacing it with a requirement that agency officials write up a different conservation plan for every species they add to the “threatened” list. This comes at a time when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) faces a backlog of 400 species awaiting consideration for ESA listing, has seen staff cuts affecting at least 500 biologists, and has lost more than a third of the budget allocated for this work. With this perpetual backlog, reversing the blanket 4(d) rule undermines the ESA and strips vital conservation measures for hundreds of newly listed threatened species for the foreseeable future.

“When federal agencies issue rules, they must explain how their choices relate to facts on the ground.

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