{"id":875671,"date":"2026-10-08T23:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T23:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875671\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T23:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T23:22:22","slug":"trump-administration-seeks-to-narrow-endangered-species-protections-with-potential-impacts-on-north-coast-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875671\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Seeks to Narrow Endangered Species Protections, With Potential Impacts on North Coast Habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Humboldt<\/p>\n

Ben Kazez, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons {note the image has been rotated to fit format)<\/p>\n

This legal battle could have significant implications for Humboldt County, home to numerous species classified as threatened and endangered. Among them are northern spotted owls and marbled murrelets and coho salmon and steelhead. The region is also home to the federally threatened Humboldt marten. The administration\u2019s removal of the regulatory definition of \u201charm\u201d leaves environmentalists concerned about how much protection these animals will receive when logging, development, water diversions, or other activities alter their habitat.<\/p>\n

Press release from the United States Department of Justice:<\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) yesterday filed motions for summary judgment in four cases defending challenges to a rule rescinding the regulatory definition of \u201charm\u201d in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These cases, in the Northern District of California and the District of South Carolina, are the first in a series of similar challenges across the country to reach this stage of litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegulatory overreach burdens American families and businesses, and these now-rescinded Endangered Species Act regulations are a prime example,\u201d said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of ENRD. \u201cThe Department of Justice will continue vigorously defending President Trump\u2019s efforts to uphold the Act as written and protect economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the filings, what is at issue in all four cases is whether the ESA\u2019s restriction on \u201ctake\u201d of listed species requires an intentional, purposeful act directed against a particular animal. In the ESA, Congress defined \u201ctake\u201d to include 10 verbs centered on intentional actions against individual animals, like hunt, shoot, wound, kill, and trap. But the FWS and NMFS interpreted one of those verbs, \u201charm,\u201d in a way that allowed them to regulate actions that modify a species\u2019 habitat.<\/p>\n

The filings go on to say that the Supreme Court\u2019s since-overruled Chevron doctrine deferred to certain agency interpretations of statutes, which led to the court\u2019s decision to uphold the prior regulatory definitions of \u201charm\u201d in the ESA. A dissent to that decision stated how the ESA\u2019s plain language, structure, and history cut against such an overly broad reading. After the Supreme Court\u2019s rejection of Chevron deference in its decision in Loper Bright Enterprises, the FWS and NMFS should interpret the statute according to its plain terms \u2014 which adopts the reasoning of that prior dissent \u2014 and decide to rescind the regulatory definitions of \u201charm\u201d to return to the statutory text as written.<\/p>\n

Attorneys from ENRD\u2019s Wildlife and Marine Resources Section and Natural Resources Section are handling the matters.<\/p>\n

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