The goal of the Endangered Species Act Defense campaign is to defend and strengthen the Endangered Species Act.  In this effort, we  work closely with a host of state and national environmental groups like  Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance and the Endangered Species Coalition.

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Breaking News . . .

PROPOSED REGULATORY CHANGES BY INTERIOR WOULD  GUT  THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

A recently leaked 117-page memo outlines the Interior Department’s proposal to undermine Endangered Species Act via subversive regulatory changes.  If implemented, these draft regulations would:

• Remove recovery as a protection standard
• Allow projects to proceed that have been determined to threaten species with extinction
• Allow destruction of all restored habitat within critical habitat areas
• Restrict habitat protections against disturbance, pesticides, exotic species, and disease
• Severely limit the listing of new endangered and threatened species
• Allow states to veto endangered species introductions
• Allow states to take over virtually all aspects of the Endangered Species Act
• Turn the status quo - which for imperiled species will always be poor - into an accepted baseline
• Limit the law's applicability to only a narrow subset of federal agency activities
  

These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to protect imperiled species and the special places they call home. A side-by-side comparison of the draft and current regulations, attached, demonstrates how ESA implementation would be weakened.

Fortunately, members of Congress have stepped up and are circulating a Dear Colleague letter to Interior Secretary Kempthorne outlining their concerns about the leaked draft regulations.

Here's a comparison and contrast of the Interior's draft regulations and the existing Endangered Species Act protections.

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Citizen's Guide to the Endangered Species Act

The Citizen's Guide to the Endangered Species Act (1222 kb) is a color, 59-page guide to everything you need to know about the Endangered Species Act, in a nutshell and in layman's terms. The Citizen's Guide gives useful history of the Act's creation in 1973 by a republican president, tells you how and why it works and gives you a brief tour of each of the Act's sections - from Section IV (Determination of Threatened and Endangered Species, listing process, critical habitat and recovery planning) to Section XI (Enforcement). Click the following links for the full text of the Endangered Species Act itself or to learn about the Fish & Wildlife Service's Endangered Species Program.