June 20, 2025 - WASHINGTON— On Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration for 
failing to release public records about its proposal to rescind the long-standing definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act’s regulations. The proposed change marks the administrations’ first step toward stripping habitat protections from imperiled plants and animals facing extinction.
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“Trump wants to undermine essential protections for endangered and threatened species and pave the way for the places they live to be destroyed,” said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at the Center’s endangered species program. “These records may shed light on the people and industry interests that are driving this effort, because it’s certainly not based on science or the law.”
The Endangered Species Act prohibits “take” of endangered species. Congress defined “take” broadly to include actions that “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” species. For decades the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has defined “harm” to include “significant habitat modification or degradation” that kills or injures wildlife. But in April the Trump administration proposed rescinding that definition, which would severely undermine habitat protections for imperiled species.
In response, the Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of the Interior seeking public records related to the proposed change that might help explain it, since habitat destruction is the primary cause of extinction. To date, no records have been produced. Today’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, says the Trump administration is violating the public records law by withholding the documents.
From spotted owls to Florida panthers, the definition of harm has been pivotal to saving and recovering endangered species. It’s a key difference between the federal Endangered Species Act and most state endangered species laws, which generally lack habitat protections.
The current definition of harm was upheld in the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case Babbit v. Sweet Home as aligned with the Endangered Species Act’s plain meaning and its conservation purpose.
“Our planet is facing a global extinction crisis on a scale that hasn’t been seen in all of human history,” said Shannon. “Scientists predict that more than 1 million plants and animals are on track to go extinct in the coming decades. Trump should be stepping up to protect our vanishing wildlife, not hammering their coffin nails.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Source: Center for Biological Diversity
