Democratic states led by California sued the Trump administration Wednesday for its move to overhaul the Endangered Species Act by implementing the law in a manner more accommodating to businesses.
California, Maryland, and Massachusetts led the suit filed by 17 states, Washington, D.C., and New York City in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“The Trump administration has misread the Endangered Species Act,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra at a press conference. “They’ve chosen to prioritize endangering endangered species, rather than protecting those species. They’re continuing their lawless behavior.”
The lawsuit continues the fight between California and the Trump administration over the federal government’s efforts to ease regulations relating to the environment and climate change.
In California, there are over 300 species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act, Becerra said, more than any other mainland state.
Democrats say the Trump administration’s administrative changes to the law, finalized last month, are the most far-reaching regulatory revisions to the 1973 Endangered Species Act in decades. Supporters credit the law with saving the bald eagle, humpback whale, and the American alligator, among others.
The states are basing their lawsuit on three main allegations: The administration acted arbitrarily by not adequately considering science, that it failed to properly absorb public comment, and the changes violate the text and purpose of the statute to protect vulnerable species from extinction.
The Trump administration is casting the changes as less far-reaching than Democrats and environmentalists claim, with the aim of making the law more efficient and less cumbersome.
The new rules allow the federal government to consider economic analyses in listing threatened or endangered species, which opponents say would make it more difficult for a species to qualify for protection.
It would end the so-called “blanket rule” of automatically granting protections to species that are classified as threatened and would instead make a distinction between “threatened” and “endangered” species. Threatened is a weaker classification than endangered that provides for looser regulations.
Another change gives the government more flexibility in determining whether species face threatening conditions in the “foreseeable future,” defining the term in a narrower way that critics say would discount longer-term effects, such as climate change.
The administration will also toughen the standard for the government designating “critical habitats” that need to be preserved to protect species, creating exemptions for areas that were once occupied by species but have been abandoned. This would potentially leave those habitats open to energy development.
