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Today, 86 Congressional Democrats demanded the Trump administration withdraw four proposed rules that would blow massive holes in the Endangered Species Act — the law that has saved 99 percent of listed species from extinction. 

In a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, ESA Caucus Co-Chairs Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-CA) warned the changes would gut environmental review, strip protections from hundreds of vulnerable species, and let politics override science in listing decisions—all while the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service face unprecedented staffing and budget shortfalls thanks to the Trump administration.

"These sweeping changes would fundamentally weaken our nation's most important wildlife conservation law at a time when one million species face extinction globally," wrote the lawmakers. "We urge the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw these proposed rulemakings and instead work to implement the ESA as Congress intended: any regulatory changes should further the objectives of the ESA to conserve species and prevent extinction."

The ESA has prevented more than 99 percent of listed species from going extinct and has helped hundreds move toward recovery. Section 7 consultations typically take just two weeks for informal review and two months for formal review—contrary to conventional wisdom, the ESA does not stop projects from moving forward. According to one peer-reviewed study, the ESA did not halt a single project between 2008 and 2015. 

The lawmakers highlighted how the proposed rules would:

• Gut Section 7 consultation requirements by letting agencies claim project impacts "would occur regardless of whether the proposed action goes forward" — a loophole that could exempt highways, pipelines, and development projects from meaningful scrutiny;
• Strip protections from threatened species — by rescinding the "blanket 4(d) rule" that extends baseline protections to all threatened species, creating dangerous years-long protection gaps that resource-agencies can’t fill. The blanket 4(d) rule provides automatic protections to species such as the piping plover and the West Indian Manatee, species listed as threatened in the future would not receive those same baseline protections; and
• Let politics override science by injecting cherry-picked ‘economic’ considerations into listing decisions. Congress explicitly required that listing decisions be based solely on the best available science, not on arbitrary evaluations of certain impacts or political pressures.

"With reduced staff and resources, the Services should prioritize addressing the backlog of species awaiting protection and advancing recovery efforts for those already listed, rather than redirecting attention to rewriting long-standing and effective regulations," continued the lawmakers. "Habitat destruction and climate change are accelerating species extinction to alarming rates, and we should be working to uphold and strengthen the ESA, not weaken it."

The letter notes that roughly 90 percent of listed species are threatened by habitat loss, making the proposed restrictions on critical habitat designation particularly damaging to recovery efforts.

Full text of the letter is available here.