Endangered Species Emerge as Trump’s Latest Takedown Target (1)

Environmental law groups are hiring a cadre of attorneys in a bid to block President Donald Trump’s deregulatory efforts, which they assert will dismantle endangered species protections.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which sued the first Trump administration more than 280 times, is adding six lawyers. Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm that sued more than 200 times, is seeking eight more.

Both groups say they’re preparing to file possibly hundreds of lawsuits to challenge potential rollbacks under Trump’s Jan. 31 deregulation plan, which directs federal agencies to eliminate 10 rules for each new one they enact.

“We’re not as caught by surprise as we were last time around,” said Kristen Boyles, managing attorney for Earthjustice.

The scramble is a response to the disruption cascading across multiple departments and agencies, as the president and his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency seek to shrink government and repeal or replace every last vestige of the Biden agenda.

Trump’s Jan. 20 energy emergency declaration notably uses the Endangered Species Act to expedite development, directing his secretary of the Interior to regularly convene a rarely used committee to identify “obstacles to domestic energy infrastructure specifically deriving from implementation of the ESA or the Marine Mammal Protection Act.”

That committee, nicknamed the “God Squad” because of its power to unilaterally lift protections for imperiled species, will be key to Trump’s deregulatory efforts because developers often see those rules as impediments to oil, gas, and mining projects, and other industries he also embraces.

Project 2025, considered a policy blueprint for the second Trump administration though he has denied it, claimed the ESA is a failure because it stands in the way of some economic development, and it contends many protected species remain on the brink of extinction. It called for numerous ESA reforms, including abolishing protections for the gray wolf and the grizzly bear, and preventing the still-unprotected but imperiled greater sage-grouse from blocking energy development.

Endangered species protections involve thousands of regulations—at least one rule for each of the roughly 2,375 imperiled plants and animals listed as endangered or threatened. There were 172 endangered species-related rulemakings in progress at the end of the Biden administration. If those are to be enacted, Trump’s order dictates that another 1,720 rules would need to be abolished.

Lesser Prairie Chicken Test

The God Squad has lifted some protections for only three species since Congress created it in 1978: the snail darter and the whooping crane in 1979, and the northern spotted owl in 1992. The committee rejected lifting protections for the snail darter, but was overruled by Congress. At the same time, the God Squad voted to prevent whooping crane protections from blocking construction of Wyoming’s Grayrocks Dam.

The committee later permitted logging in spotted owl habitat in Oregon after a timber industry advocacy campaign.

Attorneys say Trump’s order could be a way to use the squad to cut corners and lift protections by force.

Sandi Snodgrass, partner at Holland & Hart LLP in Denver, said she’s watching whether the Interior Department will use the God Squad specifically to attempt to remove endangered species protections that get in the way of development, or to exempt developers from having to get a permit to kill species in their way.

“Litigation would be fast and furious if the de-listing was not supported by a defensible analysis of the threats to the species but was instead based on policy,” she said.

Normally, eliminating endangered species rules isn’t simple. Such a step typically demands scientific evidence to prove that a rollback is warranted, and then that goes through a lengthy rulemaking process, said Melinda Taylor, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

Taylor said a test case will be the fate of the lesser prairie chicken, an imperiled bird whose habitat overlaps the oil fields of the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico.

President Joe Biden in 2022 listed one lesser prairie chicken population as endangered, and another population as threatened. Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas—representing oil industry interests—sued, and the Biden administration defended the listing in court.

Another test is likely to be the grizzly bear, one of the targets of Project 2025. Republicans have for years called for grizzlies around Yellowstone National Park and the Continental Divide to lose protections, in part because the bear population has tripled. But the Biden administration in January declined to de-list the bear, contending grizzlies still need protection.

That decision “endangers communities, especially farmers and ranchers, who live under the threat of grizzly bear attacks,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement following Biden’s announcement.

It’s unclear how the possible staffing and budget reductions across the federal government will affect the Interior Department and its endangered species programs.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, responding to questions about how Trump’s orders would affect endangered species regulations, said Trump will “unleash America’s energy potential” and cut regulations as his executive orders describe. “He will simultaneously ensure that our nation’s land and water can be enjoyed for generations to come,” Kelly said.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on its implementation of the executive orders.

Boyles and other environmental attorneys said they’re watching how aggressively the administration uses the endangered species “God Squad” as a deregulatory weapon. “If they try to use those emergency procedures in ways that are fundamentally unlawful,” a lawsuit will follow, she said.

“Executive orders aren’t law,” Boyles said.

The likelihood of a lawsuit filed against the God Squad is strong if it allows a project to proceed that would otherwise be blocked under the Endangered Species Act, said Bill Hartwig, a former Fish and Wildlife official who now works as a senior advisor for Dawson & Associates.

“This act is in the way of lots of people trying to do what they want to do—always has been, always will be,” Hartwig said.