A single word in the law can decide whether a forest gets bulldozed out from under the species that depend on it. For fifty years, that word — “harm” — has meant what common sense says it means: you can’t destroy an animal’s habitat and pretend you haven’t hurt the animal. In 2026, the federal government is trying to redefine that word out of existence, and with it, the most powerful tool America has ever had for keeping species alive.
What’s happening — and what’s at risk
The Endangered Species Act has been one of the most successful conservation laws in the world, credited with saving the vast majority of the species under its protection from extinction — bald eagles, gray whales, and American alligators among them. Its strength rests on a simple insight: a species cannot recover if the place it lives is gutted. So for decades, federal regulations have defined illegal “harm” to include the significant habitat destruction that kills or injures protected wildlife.
The administration wants to erase that definition. If it succeeds, destroying the forest, wetland, or river an endangered species needs to breed, feed, and shelter would no longer count as “harming” it — so long as no one shoots the animal directly. For creatures like the Florida manatee, the North American wolverine, the California spotted owl, the monarch butterfly, and the critically endangered Rice’s whale, habitat loss is the threat. Strip habitat out of the law’s protection and you have quietly removed the law’s reason for working at all — in the middle of a global extinction crisis driven overwhelmingly by habitat loss.
Where it stands in 2026
The rollback is moving on several tracks at once. In April 2025 the federal wildlife agencies formally proposed rescinding the decades-old definition of “harm”; the proposal drew more than 357,000 public comments, and as of spring 2026 a final version sits under White House review. Separately, in November 2025 the agencies proposed four more rules that would roll the Endangered Species Act back to its weakened 2019 framework — gutting the “blanket rule” that automatically shields newly listed threatened species, narrowing what counts as protected critical habitat, and watering down the requirement that agencies consult scientists before approving destructive projects.
Wildlife advocates are not only playing defense, and they are winning some rounds. In March 2026 a federal court struck down a batch of the earlier rollback rules as unlawful — a ruling that also undercuts the current effort. But the same month brought a serious loss: the rarely invoked Endangered Species Committee, nicknamed the “God Squad,” voted to exempt Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling from the Act entirely, using an escape hatch that had essentially never been used before. That decision is now being challenged in court. In short, the law’s defenders and its dismantlers are both active, and the coming year will decide a great deal.
“It’s about jobs and red tape” — and why that doesn’t hold up
Supporters of the rollback — including the oil, gas, mining, and timber industries and their allies in Congress — argue the Act has been stretched too far: that it strangles development, slows infrastructure, and hampers growth, and that these changes simply restore the law to its “original intent.” Permitting delays are a real frustration, and a law this consequential deserves honest scrutiny rather than reflexive defense.
But the case for gutting it collapses on the facts. The Endangered Species Act has its remarkable track record precisely because it protects habitat, not just individual animals; remove that and you don’t streamline the law, you neuter it. The “original intent” claim is hard to square with the law’s own history — Congress wrote it broadly, and the Supreme Court affirmed decades ago that habitat destruction is a form of harm. And the economic framing ignores the other ledger entirely: healthy ecosystems underpin fisheries, clean water, pollination, and tourism worth far more than the projects a weakened Act would fast-track. Extinction, unlike a permit delay, is permanent.
What we’re calling for
- Preserve the longstanding definition of “harm” so that destroying habitat still counts as harming a species.
- Keep the blanket rule that automatically protects newly listed threatened species.
- Defend strong critical-habitat designations and science-based interagency consultation.
- Reject the “God Squad” exemption for Gulf drilling and bar future end-runs around the Act.
- Fully fund the wildlife agencies so that listing and recovery decisions are driven by science, not politics.
How to help
These rules are being decided right now, and the public record genuinely shapes them — the last “harm” proposal drew hundreds of thousands of comments for a reason. Here’s where to act:
- Submit a public comment whenever the agencies open one on the ESA rollbacks; regulators are required to read and respond to them.
- Urge your members of Congress to defend the Endangered Species Act and oppose legislative attempts to weaken it.
- Support the conservation groups litigating these rollbacks — court wins have already blunted them.
- Speak up for the species near you; local voices carry real weight in habitat decisions.
Once a species is gone, no law can bring it back. Get involved with Funny not Funny and help us defend these protections while it still matters.