Montgomery, AL – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has led a 20-state coalition in submitting formal comments supporting the Trump Administration’s proposed rules for implementing the Endangered Species Act.
The letter, filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, commends the proposed changes for realigning federal regulations with the text of the Act, reducing what the coalition describes as counterproductive regulatory burdens, and better aligning incentives for landowners to participate in species recovery efforts.
“In 2016, the Obama administration abandoned a decades-old framework for designating critical habitat and gave sweeping new powers to unelected bureaucrats in direct violation of the Endangered Species Act,” Marshall said in a statement. “We filed suit and the federal government agreed to reconsider the rules. President Trump’s reforms in 2019 restored balance and common sense. Then in 2024, the Biden administration repealed those sensible reforms and enacted additional unlawful regulations. We are glad that the Trump administration is once again reversing course.”
Among the key provisions supported by the coalition is the restoration of a two-step process for designating critical habitat. Under the proposed rule, federal agencies would first evaluate areas currently occupied by a species and only consider unoccupied areas as critical habitat if occupied areas alone are insufficient to ensure conservation. The coalition notes that this approach was used for more than 30 years before being eliminated in 2016 and reflects the statutory requirement that unoccupied areas be “essential for the conservation of the species.”
The letter also supports applying the same standard when listing and delisting species as threatened or endangered, meaning regulatory requirements would ease as species recover.
Additionally, the coalition expressed support for what it described as a return to cooperative federalism, emphasizing the role of states and local partners in conservation decisions. The attorneys general wrote that they “commend the Services for proposing to realign their regulations with the textual requirements of the Endangered Species Act.”
Marshall led the coalition alongside the attorney general of North Dakota. Attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming also joined the letter.
