by Alex Brown, Washington State Standard
September 9, 2026
A coalition of state attorneys general filed a pair of lawsuits Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s rollbacks of protections for endangered species.
The lawsuits, filed by 20 states and the District of Columbia, seek to reinstate rules that protect the habitat that endangered species depend on to survive.
Under President Donald Trump, federal agencies have changed their interpretation of “harm” under the endangered species law to include only actions that directly injure or kill animals. For decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies had taken a broader position that the law also banned the destruction of forests, streams and wetlands that those animals depend on for nesting, mating and raising young.
“The federal government’s attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act threatens the habitats of orcas, sockeye salmon, and other endangered species that are part of our economy, culture, and way of life,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said in a news release.
A second lawsuit challenges a pair of new rules that change the process for federal wildlife officials to designate “critical habitat.” The rules reduce protections for newly listed threatened species and make it easier for officials to decline to list certain lands as critical.
“For over half a century, the (Endangered Species Act) has stood as a bipartisan example of what it means to protect an irreplaceable part of our planet, but these new rules attempt to destroy longstanding and integral regulatory protections and open the door to further species decline and possible extinctions,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The lawsuits argue that the rollbacks enacted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service violate two key federal laws, the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. According to Bonta’s press release, the rules ignore not just the purpose and history of the Endangered Species Act but also numerous court rulings and the law’s “overall precautionary approach.”
The lawsuits are led by Brown and Bonta, along with the attorneys general of Maryland and Massachusetts. The suits were also joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In a statement, the Department of the Interior vowed to “vigorously defend its authority” to manage endangered species under the new guidelines.
“This lawsuit seeks to preserve a decades-old regulatory overreach that expanded the Endangered Species Act beyond the authority granted by Congress,” the agency said, according to Reuters.
Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at [email protected].
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Washington State Standard, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: [email protected].