Attorney General Bonta Files Lawsuits Challenging Trump Administration’s Attempt to Weaken Endangered Species Act Protections

September 9, 2026 Contact: (916) 210-6000, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today co-led a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing two lawsuits against the Trump Administration, one against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and one against the FWS and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (collectively, the Services) over recent revisions to key regulations implementing the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The rules significantly weaken safeguards for our nation’s most vulnerable species by drastically reducing protections for listed fish and wildlife species’ habitat; establishing an unlawful process for excluding areas from critical habitat designations; and curtailing the ESA’s protections for newly listed threatened fish, wildlife, and plant species. Two of these regulatory rollbacks would reinstate the same unlawful ESA regulations adopted under the first Trump Administration, which were challenged in court before being reversed by the Biden Administration. In today’s lawsuits, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition argue that the rules violate the ESA, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Administra