Conservation groups sue over Trump species habitat rule

Conservation groups sued US President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday, accusing it of weakening a core Endangered Species Act protection by removing habitat destruction from the legal definition of "harm" to vulnerable plants and animals.

The Interior Department finalized the regulatory changes last week, overturning five decades of precedent in how the law is interpreted. The Trump administration has argued that actions that directly injure or kill plants and animals will still be barred, but said the previous definition of "harm" was too broad and interfered with private property rights.

The complaint was filed in federal court in Washington state by groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club. The groups argued that the government violated common sense, biological science and federal law. Their complaint said habitat destruction and degradation can kill threatened and endangered species, citing examples including dams blocking salmon passage and logging forests with nesting trees for marbled murrelets.

In a separate statement, the groups said the rule changes could immediately harm wildlife including Florida manatees, grizzly bears, salmon, steelhead fish, rufa red knots, golden-cheeked warblers and insect pollinators. Miles Johnson, legal director for Columbia Riverkeeper, criticized the administration's position, saying that claiming the Endangered Species Act does not protect endangered species habitat was "beyond stupid."

The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, prohibits "taking" endangered species. The law defines "take" to include actions such as harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing or collecting protected species, or attempting such conduct. The government had further defined "harm" to include significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavior such as breeding, feeding or sheltering.

That definition had stood for decades and survived a 1995 Supreme Court case focused on protection of old-growth forests for spotted owls. In proposing the revision last year, the Trump administration cited a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that overrode the Chevron doctrine, which had allowed federal agencies to interpret ambiguous statutes. The government says it is now required to follow what it calls the single best meaning of a statute rather than adapting laws to fit a political agenda.

The repeal is part of a broader set of measures curbing the Endangered Species Act. Last November, the government proposed allowing economic considerations in decisions on whether to protect species at risk of extinction. The Trump administration has also exempted oil and gas industries operating in the Gulf of Mexico from complying with the act. On Monday, the government announced it was reducing two large protected land areas in Utah by more than 90 percent each.