The Endangered Species Act got a reprieve on Monday. The Trump administration could launch its next attack today.
The decision comes as a federal group dubbed the ‘God Squad’ is set to discuss exempting oil and gas development in the Gulf from ESA restrictions.
The Trump administration’s efforts to roll back protections under the Endangered Species Act were dealt a blow on Monday when a federal judge vacated a series of changes that critics said weakened the law’s ability to protect imperiled animals and plants.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, in the Northern District of California, sided with a coalition of environmental groups that had challenged the changes, which they said were the first major overhaul to the ESA in decades.
Among other things, the judge rejected provisions that challengers said narrowed the criteria federal agencies must consider when evaluating whether major projects will harm endangered species and set an “artificially high” standard for whether indirect impacts from a project must be considered.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, which jointly administer the ESA, promulgated the challenged rules.
“Insofar as the Services exclude from consideration at the last step scientific evidence of effects that are not ‘reasonably certain,’ they cannot meaningfully be said to have taken that evidence into account in making the ultimate jeopardy determination,” Judge Tigar, an Obama appointee, wrote. “That violates the ESA.”
Judge Tigar also vacated language in the rules allowing habitat destruction to go unchecked so long as it doesn’t diminish critical habitat relied upon by endangered species “as a whole.” He said that would enable piecemeal destruction the statute prohibits.
The decision marks a setback for the Trump administration as it finalizes more proposed rules to alter ESA protections, which can cause delays for major projects as protections for endangered animals and plants are worked out.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs told Landmark that some of the proposed revisions “flatly contradict” the Monday ruling.
Earthjustice senior attorney Ben Levitan — who helped represent challengers the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club — said the decision “sends a strong signal to the Trump administration that its pending plans to further weaken the rules will violate the law.”
“Extinction is forever, and today’s ruling strikes down regulations that deprived vulnerable species of a last chance at survival,” he said.
The rules at the heart of the case originated during President Donald Trump’s first term and were only partially revised under President Joe Biden, leaving conservationists unsatisfied.
The second Trump administration had asked that the rules be remanded while it takes on its new overhaul, which is expected to be finished in October. The judge declined to wait.
The decision also came just a day before the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies are set to meet as part of a committee dubbed the “God Squad” to discuss exempting oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico from the ESA process.
The “God Squad” name reflects the committee’s power to effectively sentence a species to extinction.
That committee has rarely convened in the law's 50-year history. It has the authority to override ESA protections when other national interests are deemed to outweigh them. Doing so could put roughly two dozen endangered species in the region at risk, including the Rice’s whale and certain species of sea turtles.
The meeting comes as the U.S. continues its war against Iran, which has led to rising energy prices.
Andrew Mergen, a professor at Harvard Law who spent decades working on environmental issues for the U.S. Department of Justice, told Landmark that the Trump administration’s effort to bypass environmental protections for endangered species — both through rulemaking and the potential exemptions — undermines a process of protection for endangered creatures that has been respected not only by environmentalists but also federal agencies like the Department of Defense.
The Defense Department may not have always done everything the environmentalists wanted in terms of protection, but it did a lot, he said. And the Trump administration is trying to do virtually nothing.
“This cynical, callous move that would not have occurred without President Trump will be shocking to many, many members of the military and national security apparatus who have long understood that we can do more than one thing well,” he said.