Nine environmental organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a Seattle federal court on Tuesday. The complaint challenges a July 10 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to rescind a long-standing regulatory definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act. The agencies previously stated that maintaining a separate definition of the term was unnecessary.
The plaintiffs, which include the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, allege that the removal of the definition violates the Endangered Species Act and departs from a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. They argue that the change excludes habitat degradation from being classified as an illegal "take" of protected wildlife. Legal representatives for the groups stated that the repeal ignores decades of legal precedent regarding the protection of animal habitats.
The lawsuit names Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as defendants, alongside their respective departments. The administration's move aligns with a narrower interpretation of the law previously suggested in judicial dissents, which argued that a "take" requires an intentional act directed at a specific animal. The Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce did not provide immediate comment on the litigation.