{"id":461617,"date":"2026-09-12T11:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461617\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T11:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:50:29","slug":"states-sue-trump-admin-over-rollback-of-endangered-species-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461617\/","title":{"rendered":"States sue Trump admin. over rollback of endangered species protections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twenty US states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration for enacting rules they argue illegally weaken the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The big picture: One lawsuit targets a new rule that narrows the law\u2019s definition of \u201charm,\u201d permitting habitat encroachment \u2013 such as oil drilling or mining \u2013 as long as animals are not directly killed or injured.<\/p>\n<p>The second lawsuit challenges two rules: one removes blanket protections for newly threatened species unless case-by-case protections are issued, and another requires government consideration of industry objections before designating critical habitats.<\/p>\n<p>New York Attorney General Letitia James indicated the cases involve attorneys general from 20 states and DC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Driving the news: The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, has been credited with saving species like the bald eagle, California condor, grizzly bear, and humpback whale.<\/p>\n<p>Weakening the law aligns with President Trump\u2019s broader push to cut regulations he says restrict American business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Go deeper: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the changes, saying the act had been used to block projects, harm competitiveness and disrupt the economy.<\/p>\n<p>The new rules follow a 2024 Supreme Court decision that reduced judicial deference to agency interpretations of federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty US states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration for enacting rules they argue illegally&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-461617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}