Salem, OR – Attorney General Dan Rayfield is standing up for endangered and threatened species in Oregon and across the country and will be filing two lawsuits today against new federal rules that strip away core protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The rules make it easier for private companies and individuals to damage or destroy the habitats that threatened and endangered wildlife need to survive.
“One of the things that makes Oregon a truly great place to live and visit is our natural environment, including our rich, vibrant habitats and animal species,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “Protecting these spaces and the animals who call them home is about preserving our way of life for generations to come.”
"Oregon's natural landscapes and waters are the foundation of our rural economies and the ecosystems that define this state,” Governor Tina Kotek said. “While President Trump is doing everything in his power to roll back decades of longstanding habitat protections, Oregon will continue to fight back on every front, with everything we have, to protect our wildlife.”
The first lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), challenges the rescission of the longstanding definition of “harm” under the ESA. For decades, “harm” included significant damage to a species’ habitat – the kind of habitat destruction that interferes with breeding, feeding, or shelter and can ultimately kill or injure wildlife. Narrowing that definition means habitats can be destroyed more easily, even when that destruction threatens a species’ survival.
The second lawsuit against FWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), challenges two additional rule changes: one that strips automatic protections from newly listed threatened species, and another that rewrites how the federal government decides which areas count as “critical habitat.” Together, these changes leave species and the places they depend on with far less protection than Congress intended when it passed the ESA.
Oregon is home to numerous species listed as endangered or threatened that depend on federal public lands for their survival. Oregon also was the first State to have a fish species delisted due to recovery under ESA regulations, proving that the ESA works when species’ habitats are adequately protected.
Habitat loss remains the number one driver of species decline nationwide. AG Rayfield argues these changes ignore the purpose of the ESA – protecting the ecosystems that endangered and threatened wildlife rely on – and violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act as well.
Attorney General Rayfield is filing both lawsuits alongside attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
