March 27, 2026 — On March 31, the “God Squad” of endangered species in the U.S. will convene for the first time in more than 30 years
They will discuss whether to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from Endangered Species Act protections—a move that could make the Rice’s Whale extinct, activists claim.
March 25, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has notified NOAA Fisheries of its intent to sue the agency after it denied a petition to list horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“Horseshoe crabs watched the dinosaurs come and go, but now they face their greatest threat yet: us,” CBD Senior Attorney Danny Waltz said in a release. “Fortunately, we also have the power to save horseshoe crabs by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”
March 20, 2026 — Bipartisan opportunities exist for updating the Endangered Species Act, lawmakers and witnesses agreed at a notably even-keeled Senate panel hearing Wednesday.
Forgoing the rhetorical fireworks that sometimes light up ESA discussions, the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife hearing suggested at least the possibility of legislative compromise.
That’s a sharp contrast to developments in the House, where Republicans are moving forward with a proposed overhaul that many Democrats have blasted as little more than an industry wishlist.
March 18, 2026 — The Trump administration plans to convene the so-called God Squad, a high-level federal panel that has the power to override protections under the Endangered Species Act, for a meeting related to oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.
The meeting, scheduled for March 31, will be the first time in three decades that the group, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, will gather.
Notice of the meeting was released on Friday and officially published in the Federal Register on Monday. The Gulf, which the administration calls the Gulf of America, is home to the critically endangered Rice’s whale, a species that exists nowhere else. According to the latest available federal estimates, around 50 of the animals remain on Earth.
Information in the notice announcing the meeting, called by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, is sparse.
“The Committee is meeting regarding an exemption under the Endangered Species Act with respect to oil and gas exploration, development, and production activities in the Gulf of America associated with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program,” the notice states.
When emailed for additional information on what had prompted the move, the Interior Department declined to directly answer questions and repeated the published information. But President Trump has wanted the God Squad to convene since he returned to office last year.
February 20, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has denied Endangered Species Act protections for the Atlantic horseshoe crab, a lumbering species whose unique blood is highly valued by the biomedical industry.
Faced with two petitions that urged designating the species as either threatened or endangered, the federal agency instead concluded no ESA listing was warranted.
“There has been improvement in the population status and trends of regional populations from New Hampshire to Florida-Atlantic, with the exception of New York,” NOAA Fisheries announced this week, adding that “the petitions rely on obsolete and incorrect information to infer the current status and trends of the species.”
February 20, 2026 — More than two and a half years after a petition was filed, NOAA Fisheries has determined that spring-run Chinook salmon on the Washington coast are not a distinct group from their fall-run counterparts and don’t warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“NMFS has independently reviewed the best available scientific and commercial information,” NOAA Fisheries stated in a post on the Federal Register. “NMFS concludes that Chinook salmon spring-run populations on the Washington coast do not meet the definition of a species.”
January 6, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the federal government for failing to protect American horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act.
Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center, says since 2000, horseshoe crab populations have crashed by more than 70% across their range from Maine to Louisiana.
December 9, 2025 –For the second time in seven years the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have determined that Chinook Salmon do not meet the requirements to warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.
A petition set forth by the Center for Biological Diversity claims that the spring-run Chinook Salmon is threatened, and endangered.
“It’s bad news for anyone who loves salmon, or depends on salmon including the orcas, including tribes, salmon fishers both recreational and commercial, and the public interest suffers,” said Jeff Miller, a Senior Conservation Advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.
December 5, 2025 — Most Pacific Coast salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act have increased in abundance over the past 25 years, arresting earlier declines. These findings were published in new research by NOAA Fisheries scientists who have studied the species.
The scientists examined trends in 28 population groups, called distinct population segments, within five species of salmon and steelhead listed from 1989 to 2007. These groups represent specific geographic areas and genetic characteristics, and are the smallest units that can be listed under the Act. The scientists found that a majority of the population groups protected as threatened or endangered increased in abundance. None disappeared into extinction. Protected population groups also increased faster than unprotected populations of the same species.
“At the time of the salmon listings, there was a path toward recovery and a path toward extinction,” said Michael Ford, lead author of the new research published in Fish and Fisheries. Ford recently retired as a research scientist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “So far, we have avoided extinction and even succeeded in moving many populations in the right direction, but most are still far from complete recovery.”
November 24, 2025 — The environmental rollbacks came one after the next this week, potentially affecting everything from the survival of rare whales to the health of the Hudson River.
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, narrowing the reach of the Clean Water Act.
On Wednesday, federal wildlife agencies announced changes to the Endangered Species Act that could make it harder to rescue endangered species from the brink of extinction.
And on Thursday, the Interior Department moved to allow new oil and gas drilling across nearly 1.3 billion acres of U.S. coastal waters, including a remote region in the high Arctic where drilling has never before taken place.
If the Trump administration’s proposals are finalized and upheld in court, they could reshape U.S. environmental policy for years to come, environmental lawyers and activists said.
“This was the week from hell for environmental policy in the United States,” said Pat Parenteau, a professor emeritus and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School. “Unless stopped by the courts, each of these proposed rollbacks will do irreparable harm to the nation’s water quality, endangered species and marine ecosystems.”
The quick pace of these proposals was notable, even for an administration that has enacted Mr. Trump’s agenda at breakneck speed.
While the administration was working in Washington to dismantle environmental protections, 3,300 miles to the south, negotiators from nearly 200 nations were trying to improve the planet’s health at the United Nations climate summit in Brazil.