The Trump Administration has targeted the Endangered Species Act as an impediment to oil and gas drilling since its first hours in office.  

On Inauguration Day, President Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency” and instructing something called the Endangered Species Act Committee (made up of Trump-appointed officials) to meet every 90 days to consider applications to exempt species from the “consultation” requirements of an important part of the law called “Section 7.”  

Section 7 requires all federal agencies to consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service “to ensure that actions they fund, authorize, permit, or otherwise carry out . . . [are] not likely to jeopardize the continued existence" of any threatened or endangered species. As part of that consultation process, every agency must ask Fish & Wildlife “whether any species which is listed or proposed to be listed may be present” at project sites.  

Trump’s order thus paves the way for permit applicants and federal agencies to ignore the possible presence of threatened and endangered species at the sites of proposed construction projects. But the order is not limited to energy projects – it applies to any type of project permitted or funded by a federal agency.  

While Section 7 requires the committee to perform reviews and issue findings before issuing such an exemption (and the committee’s decision is subject to judicial review) the executive order gives the green light to the committee, applicants and agencies to try to circumvent the Endangered Species Act whenever possible.    

Environmental groups dispute that the committee has the power to operate in this way.  

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has also found other ways of attacking the Endangered Species Act, especially when it comes to a pair of species whose habitat overlaps with the oil-and gas-rich Permian Basin in Texas and Oklahoma.  

In early May, Trump officials filed a motion in a Texas court arguing that the lesser prairie-chicken, a species of grouse whose habitat in the southern and central plains overlaps with lands sought for agricultural and energy development, was erroneously listed by the Biden Administration under the Endangered Species Act in 2022.  

For decades, this controversial prairie inhabitant with an elaborate courtship ritual involving reddish-orange air sacs on its neck, has wavered between threatened and endangered status, the latter providing much more stringent protections. The unique bird’s range has shrunk by 92 percent since the nineteenth century, primarily due to habitat loss and degradation, and only an estimated 27,000 individuals remain.

The Biden administration determined that two distinct populations of the grouse existed and that the southern one (in eastern New Mexico and Southwest Texas) was endangered while the northern one (in central and western Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle) was threatened. The Trump Administration is arguing that the Fish and Wildlife Service was wrong in dividing the species into distinct populations and therefore that the bird’s endangered status should be revoked.

Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said it’s unprecedented and likely illegal for the Trump administration to request a “remand and vacatur” of the lesser prairie-chicken rule.  

“The rule was promulgated with the best available science and public notice and comment,” Rylander said. “Undoing a rule like that requires a similar process. The administration cannot simply withdraw it without adequate justification, and they haven’t provided one.”

On April 1, Texas Congressman August Pfluger and Kansas Congressman Tracey Mann, both Republicans, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urging him to reverse not only the listing of the lesser prairie-chicken but also the dunes sagebrush lizard, another Biden administration-listed species whose habitat overlaps with land desirable for fossil fuel development.  

Saying the de-listing will “unleash American energy,” the representatives reintroduced the Limiting Incredulous Zealots Against Restricting Drilling (LIZARD) Act, arguing that local conservation efforts driven primarily by voluntary measures are adequate to protect endangered species like the lizard.  

Joanna Zhang, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said the lesser prairie-chicken and dunes sagebrush lizard both occupy a major oil and gas producing area in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas.  

“The Trump administration has been focused on a ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda, prioritizing energy development over protecting wildlife, and they see these species as an inconvenience to oil and gas development in the Permian Basin,” she said. “A species should only come off the list when they've met their scientifically determined recovery targets, not when the administration decides they'd like to open up their habitat to development.”

Zhang said voluntary measures are, by nature, optional, which means they can be inconsistent, underfunded, or abandoned when political or economic priorities shift. Relying on local measures also often creates a patchwork of protection, leaving critical parts of a species' range unprotected  

“Without regulatory enforcement, there's no guarantee that participants will follow through, especially when the voluntary measures conflict with development interests,” Zhang said.

The Trump administration is not content with attempting to revoke the endangered status of individual species. In April, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to rescind and weaken the definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act regulations. This change would sharply reduce protections under the 1973 law by prohibiting only actions that directly kill animals, not actions that destroy the habitats on which the species rely (which can indirectly kill them).

Rescinding the definition would allow real estate developers, drillers, and other land-hungry industries to bulldoze or build on the homes of endangered species. This would strip away protections that have been place for decades and that have worked to prevent the extinction of more than 99 percent of the species that have been saved by the Endangered Species Act. The act has protected over 1,700 species since its passage 52 years ago.  

Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Congress recognized habitat destruction as the primary cause of species decline when it passed the Endangered Species Act.  

“Habitat destruction is the biggest cause of species imperilment, threatening more species than all other factors combined,” she said. “There is no protecting a species without also protecting its habitat.”     

On May 19, 131 conservation and community organizations sent a letter to Secretary Burgum expressing vehement opposition to the proposed rule change to permit habitat degradation or modification.  

“Prohibiting such acts is absolutely critical to saving species from extinction,” says the letter of preventing the destruction of habitat.  “It has prevented cutting of old-growth forests where spotted owls nest, stopped development in Florida panther habitat, and so much more because the largest driver of extinction — both in the United States and around the world — continues to be human-caused habitat destruction and degradation.”

There is legal precedent for protecting the habitat of endangered species. In the 1995 Supreme Court case Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, in which timber companies faced restrictions on logging due to the Endangered Species Act, the court upheld a broad interpretation of “take” to include measures that indirectly harm a forest's at-risk species. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that "take" should be interpreted more literally to mean kill and not as an act that indirectly causes injury to a population. The Trump administration cites Scalia's argument in its proposal.

Susan Holmes, Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition, said removing habitat protection from the Endangered Species Act could be the nail in the coffin for species like Florida manatees, green sea turtles, and the Sonoran pronghorn.  

“Trump’s draconian proposal to end habitat protection for our most vulnerable wildlife rips out the heart of the Endangered Species Act and would put countless species on the path to extinction,” she said. “The stakes aren’t limited to wildlife — when ecosystems degrade, people suffer from threats to clean water, food security, and public health.”

Lead photo: The lesser prairie-chicken. Photo by Always a birder!.