"Environmental groups flocked to court today to fight the Trump administration's new Endangered Species Act regulations, kicking off a high-stakes legal debate over the government's authority to make sweeping changes to how agencies protect rare animals and plants.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, targets new ESA rules the Interior and Commerce departments finalized last week.
"The revised regulations violate the plain language and overarching purpose of the ESA; they also lack any reasoned basis and are arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act," the complaint says.
Under the new suite of regulations, federal agencies will no longer automatically apply certain protections to species listed as threatened rather than endangered, they will change the way they select land to protect as critical habitat, and they will incorporate economic analysis into early listing discussions."
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