FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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BALTIMORE, MD (December 23, 2025) – Attorney General Anthony G. Brown co-led a multistate coalition of 19 attorneys general in sending a comment letter opposing four proposed rules by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that would undermine key regulations implementing the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.
The proposed rollbacks would significantly weaken protections for a wide variety of critically imperiled species and habitat across the nation and would reinstate many of the same unlawful regulations adopted under the first Trump administration, which were challenged in court before being partially reversed in 2024.
The ESA is one of the nation’s landmark environmental protection statutes and is vitally important for protecting a wide variety of critically imperiled species and their habitats. Enacted under the Nixon administration in 1973, the ESA is intended – as the Supreme Court has described it – “to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.” And the ESA has succeeded in preventing the extinction of 99% of all species that receive its protections, including the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and humpback whale. The Trump administration’s rules would dramatically weaken federal ESA protections, enforcement, and processes, putting imperiled species and their habitats at an even greater risk of extinction.
In the letter, the coalition criticizes the Trump administration for its proposed rollbacks, which would significantly weaken protections for our nation’s most imperiled species by:
- Constraining the Services’ analysis for determining whether a species qualifies for the ESA’s protections;
- Allowing the Services to forego protections for areas that are essential for the survival and recovery of listed species if a species is threatened by global phenomena like climate change;
- Reducing the scope and number of consultations that federal agencies must undertake with the Services to ensure their actions do not adversely affect listed species or their critical habitat; and
- Removing protections from harm, harassment, or death due to various human actions for newly listed threatened species.
In sending this letter, Attorney General Brown is joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.