By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 11, 2026 – The Department of Interior finalized a change to how the federal government interprets the Endangered Species Act, a change that brings relief to Alaska’s resource industries, infrastructure projects, and private landowners.
The Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce announced Friday that they have rescinded the old regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, saying the interpretation expanded federal authority far beyond what Congress intended when it passed the law in 1973.
Administration officials stressed that the change does not eliminate protections for endangered species. Instead, it restores the law to its original statutory meaning, ending years of regulatory overreach.
The action follows the US Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned what is known as the Chevron deference doctrine and instructed federal agencies to interpret statutes according to their best reading, rather than creating expansive regulatory interpretations.
“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in announcing the rule. “That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the change also benefits commercial fisheries.
“President Trump is rescinding overly broad and burdensome regulations that have restrained our fishermen for too long,” Lutnick said. “We’re returning the ESA to its foundational purpose to ensure legitimate conservation goals are met without sacrificing economic growth and American prosperity.”
The practical effect is that federal regulators will no longer rely on an expansive regulatory definition that treated any habitat modification as “harm” if it indirectly injured protected species by affecting breeding, feeding, or sheltering.
Instead, the agencies will return to the statute’s text, which prohibits the “take” of endangered species through actions such as killing, wounding, trapping, capturing, or otherwise directly harming protected animals.
Direct injury or killing of endangered wildlife remains illegal. Existing incidental take permits remain valid, and the rule does not eliminate other Endangered Species Act requirements, including critical habitat designations or consultation requirements where they apply.
For Alaska, where much of the state’s economy intersects with federal lands and protected species, the rule could significantly reduce regulatory uncertainty.
Alaska has long argued that expansive habitat interpretations have complicated everything from oil and gas development on the North Slope to mining projects, road construction, ports, timber operations, and commercial fishing.
Projects involving polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales, Steller sea lions, certain salmon populations, spectacled eiders, northern sea otters, and other listed species have frequently required lengthy consultations over potential habitat impacts, even when no direct injury to animals was expected.
State officials have repeatedly argued that those reviews often resulted in years of permitting delays, increased legal costs, and uncertainty for developers, local governments, and Native corporations.
The revised interpretation could streamline many future consultations by focusing enforcement on direct impacts to listed species rather than speculative or indirect habitat effects.
That could prove particularly important as Alaska advances major energy and infrastructure projects, including expanded North Slope oil development, mining proposals, roads, transmission corridors, and port improvements.
The timing also aligns with the Trump administration’s broader effort to expand domestic energy production and reduce federal permitting delays.
The rule does not change the legal status of endangered or threatened species.
Polar bears, for example, remain listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Their designated critical habitat also remains in place. However, projects will likely face a narrower analysis centered on whether they directly injure or kill protected animals rather than broader claims involving indirect habitat modification.
Global polar bear populations have increased substantially over the past half century. Current estimates place worldwide populations between roughly 22,000 and 32,000 bears, compared with estimates of approximately 5,000 to 12,000 animals during the 1960s and early 1970s, before international conservation agreements reduced unregulated hunting. Over-hunting, rather than habitat alteration, has always been the cause of the reduced population of polar bears around the Arctic.
The revised rule will reduce permitting costs and provide greater certainty for landowners, energy producers, commercial fishermen, local governments, and other businesses, while preserving the Endangered Species Act’s central purpose of preventing the direct killing or injury of threatened and endangered wildlife.
Environmental organizations are expected to challenge the rule in federal court.
