The Trump Administration Is Dismantling the Endangered Species Act

In this episode of The Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Eric Glitzenstein, Director of Litigation at the Center for Biological Diversity, about what he calls the most extreme attack on the Endangered Species Act in its history. They break down two unprecedented actions by the Trump administration: the elimination of the long-standing regulatory definition of “harm” that protected endangered species’ habitat from destruction, and the invocation of the so-called “God Squad” — a cabinet-level committee that can exempt entire industries from the ESA — to shield all oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico from endangered species protections. Both moves target the core mechanisms of the law and could hasten the extinction of species like the Rice’s whale, of which only about 50 remain.

In this episode, we cover:

• The rescission of the “harm” definition — how the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service eliminated decades of regulatory protection for habitat, adopting Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion from the 1995 Sweet Home case and using the Loper Bright decision as justification
• The God Squad’s first invocation in 40 years — how Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared a “national security” exemption for all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities, based not on any actual operational curtailment but on the mere prospect of future citizen lawsuits
• The legal challenges underway — five cases challenging the harm definition rescission across federal courts, plus the Center for Biological Diversity’s suit over the God Squad’s rubber-stamp exemption, including a key jurisdictional fight over whether cases belong in district court or the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
• How the two actions intersect — the shell game of claiming habitat is protected under other ESA provisions while simultaneously gutting those same provisions through national security exemptions
• What concerned citizens can do — how to educate yourself, raise public awareness during an election year, advocate for state and local protections as federal safeguards erode, and support the organizations fighting these rollbacks in court

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Eric Glitzenstein is the Director of Litigation at the Center for Biological Diversity, a national conservation organization dedicated to preventing human-caused extinctions and protecting life on Earth. The Center has more than 80 attorneys nationwide who litigate in federal and state courts on a wide variety of wildlife protection and other issues. Mr. Glitzenstein oversees and coordinates the Center’s litigation of cases brought under the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and many other statutes on which the Center’s attorneys rely to further the protection of wildlife and imperiled ecosystems. Prior to working with the Center, Eric was the co-founder (with Katherine Meyer) and Managing Partner of the D.C.-based firm Meyer & Glitzenstein, one of the nation’s leading public-interest law firms. On behalf of both national and grassroots non-profit organizations, the firm specialized in the protection of wildlife and captive animals, environmental and natural resource conservation, and open government cases, among other issues. In addition to managing the firm and mentoring the firm’s new attorneys, Mr. Glitzenstein was lead counsel in many wildlife cases in federal courts throughout the country, including in various U.S. Courts of Appeals and in the U.S. Supreme Court.

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode’s interview.

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