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<\/a>Other provisions of the Endangered Species Act continue to offer some protection. Federal agencies must still consult wildlife officials before taking actions that may jeopardize a listed species. They also remain barred from destroying or damaging designated critical habitat. States may enforce stronger protections. Those safeguards do not cover every case. Much habitat lies outside designated areas, and many private projects receive no federal funding and require no federal permit, so the consultation requirement does not apply. The former definition could still apply when habitat loss injured or killed wildlife. Removing it gives farming, drilling, mining, logging, and real estate development more room to proceed in places where listed animals live.<\/p>\n
The rule also\u00a0abandons a legal interpretation\u00a0that had remained in place for decades. In 1995\u2019s\u00a0Babbitt v. Sweet Home<\/i>, the Supreme Court upheld the inclusion of habitat destruction within the meaning of harm. Today, however, federal agencies no longer feel bound by that precedent. Emboldened by the Supreme Court\u2019s 2024 ruling in\u00a0Loper Bright<\/i>\u2014which stripped federal agencies of their regulatory deference (Chevron<\/i>\u00a0deference)\u2014the administration claims it is restoring the \u201csingle, best meaning\u201d of the original 1973 text. In doing so, it relies on the reasoning of Justice Antonin Scalia\u2019s famous dissent in the 1995 case, which argued that only conduct aimed directly at an animal should count. Environmental groups and two Indigenous nations\u00a0have gone to court. Litigation may alter or delay the rule, but for now, developers and regulators have been told that habitat destruction will face fewer restrictions under the act.<\/p>\n
The change is significant partly because the United States helped shape the international approach to protecting endangered wildlife. In 1973, representatives of 80 countries met in Washington\u00a0to negotiate the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Later that year, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, which Congress passed with broad political support. The law reflected an understanding that development could cause losses that could not be repaired and that the government had a responsibility to prevent them.<\/p>\n
The United States did not always meet the standard it promoted. It continued to consume resources at a high rate, its demand helped drive environmental damage abroad, and Congress often failed to provide enough money to carry out the ambitions written into environmental law. The\u00a0Endangered Species Act\u00a0still required developers and federal agencies to consider whether their projects could push a species closer to extinction. It also made it easier for American officials to ask other countries to protect forests, rivers, and wetlands.<\/p>\n
The new rule makes those requests less persuasive. Other governments make their own choices. Decisions made by major economies can still make similar policies easier to defend elsewhere. An official weighing a mine against a rare frog, or a new road against an isolated forest population, can now point to the United States and cite the same concerns about predictable rules and the cost of compliance. Those arguments already influence decisions about how land is used around the world. The new rule makes them easier to defend as reasonable policy.<\/p>\n
The leading\u00a0global assessment of biodiversity\u00a0found that changes in land use have had a greater effect on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems than any other direct pressure. Species usually reach the endangered list after their range has contracted and their populations have become fragmented. Further habitat loss at that stage leaves little chance of recovery.<\/p>\n American diplomats and conservation officials will also find it harder to ask other countries to limit habitat destruction. Countries with large remaining forests are regularly asked to limit agricultural expansion, mining, road building, and settlement to protect biodiversity that benefits the wider world. The people making those decisions may face immediate economic needs and real political risks. Requests from the United States will carry less weight after its own government decided that destroying essential habitat need not count as harming an endangered animal.<\/p>\n Many effects will appear slowly, and no single permit or project may seem decisive. A breeding site may be cleared. The remaining animals may persist for years, but become increasingly isolated. Fewer young may survive, and each drought or disease outbreak will become harder to absorb. A species can remain in field guides and government databases long after it has disappeared from most of the places where people once encountered it.<\/p>\n The rule will affect decisions about individual permits, land sales, drilling plans, and development projects. Many losses will become apparent only after the officials responsible have left office. Officials and lawyers will debate the meaning of the statute and the cost of complying with it. Wildlife will have less food, fewer breeding sites, and smaller populations that are less able to survive the next drought or disease outbreak.<\/p>\n The Endangered Species Act recognized that preventing extinction sometimes required leaving some habitat undeveloped. The law can treat an animal as separate from its habitat. The animal cannot.<\/p>\n