The modern Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law in 1973 with only a couple of amendments since then in the 1980s. The primary purpose has been to protect and recover imperiled species. Among its functions are the designation of those species as threatened or endangered, designating critical habitats and providing for recovery plans
More than a half century later, the ESA is still mostly in its original form.
“Congress has been a completely failed entity with the respect to the ESA, either updating it, improving it, strengthening it or going the other way around,” Pat Parenteau, University of Vermont law school emeritus professor, told Bloomberg Law, a web-based platform focusing on legal news and information.
Litigant environmental organizations both take advantage and financially thrive by habitually using the legal process to fight things they do not like.
“There is no environmental law on the books that is exactly what environmentalists wanted,” Kierán Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) executive director, told Bloomberg Law.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently announced several ESA adjustments including a proposed ruling to provide greater flexibility for states in managing grizzly bears because of their status as threatened and not endangered. USFWS also is moving forward with rescinding the blanket 4(d) rule, an administrative rule that treated threatened species the same as endangered ones largely for administrative ease, thus dulling incentives for recovery. The new rule will require species-specific regulations.
CBD labeled the blanket rule announcement as a “one-way ticket to extinction” for animals and plants, while also declaring intentions to file suit in federal court, which it did four days later.
“It is ironic that an organization with the name ‘diversity’ in it and purports a commitment to ecological diversity actually opposes diverse, nuanced recovery rules based on the varied needs of threatened species,” said Ryan Bronson, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) director of government affairs. “One-sized-fit-all regulations are easier for the federal bureaucracy but not for the states and habitat owners trying to recover species.”
Bloomberg Law reports CBD is one of the most active litigant environmental organizations since President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, having filed at least 123 lawsuits. Suckling says it has a deliberate goal of filing more than 300 before Trump leaves office. CBD filed 266 lawsuits during the first Trump administration.
According to Ken Braun, Capital Research Center managing editor, CBD uses the courts as a fundraising mechanism. While on Capitol Hill, he testified CBD received $23.4 million in taxpayer funding over the past five years, a period covering both the Biden and Trump administrations. Braun said that total equaled 13.6 percent of the organization’s total annual revenue over that same time.
Such abuse of the federal legal system is why organizations like Hunt 2 Conserve and RMEF support reform of the Equal Access to Justice Act, which allows individuals and small businesses to fight an unresponsive government in court. However, a loophole exists that allows well-funded, litigious groups like CBD and others to file lawsuits that stop or delay habitat and wildlife management, while getting their lawyers’ fees paid with taxpayer money.
Until adjustments are made to the ESA and other laws, environmental groups will continue to ride the litigation gravy train to thwart needed reform while lining their coffers.
About Hunt 2 Conserve
Hunt 2 Conserve is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization affiliated with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Its mission is to advance a legacy of hunting and conservation by educating, activating and developing stewards and defenders of these fundamentally American ideals. For more information, go to hunt2conserve.org.
