Despite sustained efforts by the Trump administration and Republican leadership, they have now twice failed to gain enough support in the United States House of Representatives to pass legislation that would have substantially weakened the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
This is highly encouraging news for wildlife conservation. The ESA currently provides legal protection for 1,662 US species and 638 foreign species, many of which remain under severe pressure from habitat destruction, climate change, industrial development, pollution and commercial exploitation. NGOs and conservation groups had warned that the proposed changes would have significantly reduced safeguards for many vulnerable animals, including endangered marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, porpoises and polar bears, along with numerous threatened terrestrial species ranging from wolves and big cats to birds, reptiles and amphibians.
The failure of these measures demonstrates that there remains meaningful concern over attempts to weaken one of the most important environmental laws in the United States. For more than fifty years, the ESA has played a critical role in preventing extinctions and supporting the recovery of iconic species that might otherwise have disappeared forever.
