Safeguarding the Endangered Species Act
Wildlife cannot live in a place that no longer exists.
On September 14, a new federal rule took effect that makes it easier to destroy the places imperiled wildlife need to survive. This decision will have devastating impacts on America’s most vulnerable wildlife and could lead to more extinction.
THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT AND HARM TO HABITAT
For nearly five decades, the Endangered Species Act has treated harm to certain key habitat as harm to wildlife. If you bulldoze the only forest a species nests, feeds and breeds in, you have injured that species. That principle — the regulatory definition of "harm" — is part of the reason the ESA has been a success, keeping 99% of listed species from going extinct.
Habitat loss threatens 90% of listed species and is the strongest predictor of extinction risk; the more a species’ habitat is destroyed or degraded, the higher the risk of it going extinct. No species recovers without a place to live.
ELIMINATION OF “HARM” DEFINITION
On July 10, 2026, the administration proposed eliminating the regulatory definition of “harm” under the ESA, decimating key habitat protections for imperiled species. This decision could have devastating impacts on America’s most vulnerable wildlife and lead to more extinction.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
Florida manatees, for example, feed on seagrass beds. Coastal development, dredging and pollution destroy those beds. Under the old definition, wiping out a manatee's food supply was considered illegal “harm.” Under the new rule, it isn't — even when the manatees starve.
THE BILL THAT COULD FIX THIS
On July 24, 2026, Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-1) and Mike Quigley (D-IL-5) introduced the Safeguarding Endangered Species Act, H.R. 9901. It is a bipartisan bill with one job: nullify the new rule and restore the definition of harm that has protected habitat for decades. Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and numerous environmental and humane groups support H.R. 9901 and strongly urge congresspeople to cosponsor the bill.
There is no way to address the extinction crisis while making it legal to destroy the places wildlife live. H.R. 9901 would restore the protection that made the Endangered Species Act work.