The Democratic attorneys general for 20 states and the District of Columbia have sued the federal government over three federal rule changes related to the Endangered Species Act that they say weaken protections for the nation’s most vulnerable plants and animals.
The group filed two lawsuits on Sept. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The first suit challenges a rule published on July 14 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, that removes the agencies’ regulatory definition of “harm.”
That definition had treated significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injures wildlife as a form of prohibited “take” under Section 9 of the law. The Fish and Wildlife Service first adopted it in 1975, and the fisheries service adopted a similar one in 1999. Neither agency replaced it, and the new rule without this definition is set to take effect on Sept. 14….