March, 25 2025, 01:28pm EDT

Endangered Species Coalition Responds to Republican-led Congressional Attacks on Endangered Species Act and Gray Wolves
oday, the Republican-led House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries will consider legislation that would dramatically weaken the widely popular Endangered Species Act (ESA) and strip protections for gray wolves in 48 states.
The first bill — the “ESA Amendments Act of 2025” — would gut the critical protections that the ESA provides for thousands of imperiled species, upend the scientific consultation process (which has been the cornerstone of American species protection for 50 years), slow listings to a crawl while fast-tracking delistings, and allow much more exploitation of threatened species and shift their management out of federal hands to the states, even while they are still nationally listed.
The second bill — the so-called “Pet and Livestock Protection Act of 2025″ — would reissue the first Trump administration’s delisting of the gray wolf across most of the U.S. and bar judicial review of that action. In 2022, a federal court reversed this delisting, after conservation groups challenged it.
In addition to the Republican-led Congressional attacks on the ESA and gray wolves, the Trump administration recently terminated hundreds of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees — nearly 5 percent of the agency’s workforce — which is already critically understaffed. Without those employees, it will be even harder for disappearing vulnerable species to receive crucial protections, and for vitally important ecosystems across the U.S. to remain intact.
In response to attempts to undermine the ESA and delist gray wolves, organizations from across the country sent a letter to HNR leadership outlining opposition to the bills. Additionally, groups from the Endangered Species Coalition issued the following statements:
“These attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, or to go around it by picking off species like the gray wolf, represent a fundamental disconnect between a small number of legislators and millions of Americans,” said Earthjustice legislative director for lands, wildlife, and oceans Addie Haughey. “The ESA — and the iconic species it protects — enjoys immense support across the political spectrum. If these bills move forward, Congress will be acting against popular will and ignoring science to sacrifice the wildlife we love and the ecosystems we rely on.”
“Congressman Westerman’s bill would eviscerate the Endangered Species Act and push imperiled species to extinction,” said Ellen Richmond, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Endangered Species Act is the backstop for our nation’s wildlife already at the brink of extinction and this bill would sanction their swift descent into nothingness. We urge our representatives in Congress to listen to the American public’s overwhelming support for the Endangered Species Act and reject this disastrous bill which does nothing to strengthen wildlife protections and instead reverses decades of conservation success.”
“We are in a biodiversity crisis, and Congress is playing with fire. These bills would accelerate extinction at a time when we can least afford it,” said Josh Osher, public policy director for Western Watersheds Project. “The Endangered Species Act isn’t just about saving wolves, grizzlies, or sea turtles—it’s about protecting the ecosystems that sustain us all. Weakening these protections pushes our planet further into collapse. Congress must open its eyes and reject these reckless attacks before it’s too late.”
“These extreme bills would gut protections for wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. They are being introduced against a backdrop of sudden and indiscriminate firings across the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, robbing these agencies of the experts who implement these crucial protections based on the best available science,” said Susan Millward, executive director and chief executive officer for the Animal Welfare Institute. “These assaults on wildlife protections come at a time of staggering biodiversity loss, and imperiled species don’t have the luxury of waiting out these political games.”
“Extinction is forever,” says Katherine Miller, Country Director for FOUR PAWS USA. ” If we allow the protections afforded by the ESA to be weakened and undermined by legislation like this, the consequences of these decisions will reverberate for generations. The ESA protects both iconic native species like Bald eagles and non-native species like Bengal tigers. It has also protected millions of acres of habitat, ensuring a livable planet for all of us.”
“The ESA Amendments Act of 2025, introduced by Representative Westerman, is severely out of step with how most Americans view and support wildlife protection. It prioritizes big industry and special interests ahead of decades-long, science-based protections that work,” said Chris Allieri, executive director and founder, NYC Plover Project. “Radicals in Congress are fast-tracking extinction and looking to severely weaken, if not entirely remove, bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.”
“The Endangered Species Act is one of the country’s most popular and successful conservation laws, and Donald Trump wants to throw it in the garbage to pad the bottom lines of his corporate supporters,” said Bradley Williams, Sierra Club’s Deputy Legislative Director for Wildlife and Lands Protection. “Since Day One of his administration, Trump has shown again and again that he wants to hand over control of our public lands and waters to billionaires and corporations. Imperiled wildlife will suffer the consequences. For more than 50 years, the United States has made amazing progress bringing species back from the brink of extinction. It’s because of the ESA that species like the grizzly bear and bald eagle are living symbols of America and not just photos in a history book. If Trump and his allies in Congress get their way, that progress won’t just come to a screeching halt – it could be completely reversed.”
“For decades, the Endangered Species Act has been a critical lifeline in preventing the irreversible loss of our nation’s wildlife. Legislation like H.R. 845 and H.R. 1897 would undermine this powerful tool against extinction and jeopardize ongoing recovery efforts of our iconic native species, like the gray wolf.” said Jennifer Eskra, Director of Legislative Affairs at Humane World Action Fund “At a time of growing biodiversity loss, it is essential that legislators prioritize science over politics and stand with the millions of Americans who support the ESA.”
“The Endangered Species Act is one of America’s most respected and successful conservation laws. Unfortunately, Representative Westerman’s ESA amendments are crafted for greedy billionaires clinging to a 19th-century vision of plundering the planet,” said Endangered Species Coalition National Policy Director Jewel Tomasula. “This bill would devastate the sea turtles people love to see at the beach, the bumblebees that pollinate our food crops, and the spotted owls that indicate healthy forests. This bill would destroy wildlife and wild places, not protect them.”
“These reckless attacks on the Endangered Species Act and gray wolves are nothing more than a giveaway to industry at the expense of our nation’s most imperiled wildlife,” said Joanna Zhang, endangered species advocate at WildEarth Guardians. “Gutting protections for species on the brink of extinction is not reform—it’s a death sentence. Americans overwhelmingly support the ESA because it works, and we urge our representatives in Congress not to stand by while Trump and his allies try to dismantle one of our most effective conservation laws.”
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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'Exactly What We Would Expect': Climate Scientists Weigh in on Deadly Texas Flooding
"It's not a question of whether climate change played a role—it's only a question of how much," said one expert.
Jul 06, 2025
As the death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas continued to rise, climate scientists this weekend underscored the link between more frequent and severe extreme weather events and the worsening climate emergency caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels.
Officials said Sunday that at least 69 people died in the floods, 59 of them in Kerr County. Of the 27 missing girls from Camp Mystic—some of whom were sleeping just 225 feet from the Guadalupe River when its waters surged during flash flooding Friday—11 are still missing.
While some local officials blamed what they said were faulty forecasts from the National Weather Service—which has been hit hard by staffing cuts ordered by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency in line with Project 2025—meteorologists and climate scientists including Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles have refuted such allegations, citing multiple NWS warnings of potentially deadly flooding.
Experts do concur that human-caused global heating is causing stronger and more frequent extreme weather events including flooding.
"This kind of record-shattering rain (caused by slow-moving torrential thunderstorms) event is *precisely* that which is increasing the fastest in a warming climate," Swain wrote in a statement. "So it's not a question of whether climate change played a role—it's only a question of how much."
As Jeff Masters and Bob Henson wrote Saturday for Yale Climate Connections:
Many studies have confirmed that human-caused climate change is making the heaviest short-term rainfall events more intense, largely by warming the world's oceans and thus sending more water vapor into the atmosphere that can fuel heavy rain events. Sea surface temperatures this week have been as much as 1°F below the 1981-2010 average for early July in the western Gulf [of Mexico] and Caribbean, but up to 1°F above average in the central Gulf. Long-term human-caused warming made the latter up to 10 times more likely, according to the Climate Shift Index from Climate Central.
"The tragic events in Texas are exactly what we would expect in our hotter, climate-changed, world," Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysics and climate hazards at University College London, said Saturday. "There has been an explosion in extreme weather in recent years, including more devastating flash floods caused by slow-moving, wetter, storms, that dump exceptional amounts of rain over small areas across a short time."
It’s hard to make the Texas flood tragedy worse, except to know that on the same day Trump signed a bill to stop our efforts to defeat the climate change that is causing increased frequency of disastrous floods. And giving us more expensive electricity. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/c...
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— Governor Jay Inslee (@govjayinslee.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Instead of taking action to combat the planetary emergency, the Trump administration is ramping up fossil fuel production while waging war on clean energy and climate initiatives. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump on Friday slashes the tax credits for electric vehicles and other renewable technologies including wind and solar energy that were a cornerstone of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
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27 Arrested for Defying UK Ban on Nonviolent Pro-Palestine Group
"We oppose genocide—I didn't think that was that controversial—and we support the people who resist genocide," said one arrested protester.
Jul 06, 2025
Metropolitan Police arrested at least 27 protesters who gathered in central London on Saturday to publicly support Palestine Action, a nonviolent direct action group now officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.K. government.
According to Middle East Eye, Palestine defenders including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, a former government attorney, an emeritus professor, and health workers gathered by a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, where they held signs reading, "I OPPOSE GENOCIDE, I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION."
Members of the group Defend Our Juries informed Metropolitan Police of their plan prior to the demonstration.
"If we cannot speak freely about the genocide that is occurring... democracy and human rights in this country are dead."
"We would like to alert you to the fact we may be committing offenses under the Terrorism Act tomorrow, Saturday 5 July, in Parliament Square at about 1pm," the group said in an open letter to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley.
"If we cannot speak freely about the genocide that is occurring, if we cannot condemn those who are complicit in it and express support for those who resist it, then the right to freedom of expression has no meaning, and democracy and human rights in this country are dead," the letter argues.
Parfitt told Novara Media that members of Defend Our Juries were "testing the law."
"I know that we are in the right place doing the right thing," she said. "...We cannot be bystanders."
"We are losing our civil liberties, we must stop that for everybody's sake," Parfitt said in a separate interview with The Guardian.
Prior to his arrest, Defend Our Juries member Tim Crosland, the former government lawyer, told The Guardian that "what we're doing here as a group of priests, teachers, health workers, human rights lawyers [is] we're refusing to be silenced."
"Because it goes to the core of what we believe in: that we oppose genocide—I didn't think that was that controversial—and we support the people who resist genocide," he added. "In theory we are now terrorist supporters and can go to prison for 14 years, which is kind of crazy. I think what we are here to do is just expose the craziness of that."
Crosland said as he was being arrested, "This is what happens in modern day Britain for opposing genocide, it's quite something isn't it?"
A bystander told Novara Media: "I just feel disgusted by this government. I voted for them and they're now arresting people who are calling for a genocide to end. And this is a Labour government, they're meant to have left-wing roots."
Members of the group Defend Our Juries publicly declare their opposition to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and their support for the proscribed group Palestine Action while Metropolitan Police officers look on before arresting them during a July 4, 2025 demonstration in London. (Photo: Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)
In a statement, Defend Our Juries sarcastically said that "we commend the counter-terrorism police for their decisive action in protecting the people of London from some cardboard signs opposing the genocide in Gaza and expressing support for those taking action to prevent it."
"It's a relief to know that counter-terrorism police have nothing better to do," the group quipped.
Last week, British lawmakers voted to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group after some of its members vandalized two aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire on June 20. The group—which was founded in 2020 and has also vandalized U.S. President Donald Trump's golf course in Turnberry, Scotland—is known for taking direction action against companies that supply weapons to Israel, which is accused of genocide in an ongoing International Court of Justice case concerning the war on Gaza.
On June 23, U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe the group under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act of 2000, introduced under former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and widely criticized for its overbroad definition of terrorism. The House of Commons voted 385-26 Wednesday in favor of banning Palestine Action and the House of Lords approved the designation Thursday without a vote.
Palestine Action tried to delay the ban via legal action. However, the High Court on Friday denied the group's appeal for interim relief was denied on Friday, a decision that was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
The nonviolent group is now on the same legal footing in Britain as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Joining or supporting Palestine Action is now punishable by up to 14 years behind bars.
At midnight, Palestine Action will be proscribed under the Terrorism Act.Their real “crime”? Exposing the UK’s role in arming Israel’s genocide.This is a dark day for our democracy.Criminalising non-violent resistance won’t silence the truth.We are all Palestine Action 🇵🇸
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— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Earlier this month, a group of United Nations experts urged the U.K. government to not ban Palestine Action.
"We are concerned at the unjustified labeling of a political protest movement as 'terrorist,'" the experts wrote. "According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism."
The U.N. experts warned that under the ban, "individuals could be prosecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion, assembly, association, and participation in political life."
"This would have a chilling effect on political protest and advocacy generally in relation to defending human rights in Palestine," they added.
Hundreds of jurists, artists and entertainers, and others have also decried the ban on Palestine Action.
"Palestine Action is intervening to stop a genocide. It is acting to save life. We deplore the government's decision to proscribe it," Artists for Palestine U.K.—whose members include Tilda Swinton, Paul Weller, Steve Coogan, and others—wrote in a statement last month.
"Labeling non-violent direct action as 'terrorism' is an abuse of language and an attack on democracy," the artists added. "The real threat to the life of the nation comes not from Palestine Action but from the home secretary's efforts to ban it. We call on the government to withdraw its proscription of Palestine Action and to stop arming Israel."
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'Authoritarian Theater' Meets 'Pure F*cking Idiocracy' as Trump Promises White House UFC Match
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP," said one critic. "But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn. America F-Yeah!"
Jul 05, 2025
Critics of President Donald Trump's announcement of a planned Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial next year took to social media Friday to call the proposal something "straight out of 'Idiocracy'"—the comedy cult classic about a dumbed-down 26th-century America—and condemn what one detractor called "authoritarian theater."
"Every one of our national park battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250," Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday. "We're going to have a UFC fight—think of this—on the grounds of the White House."
Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.
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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
While Octagon aficionados cheered the prospect of a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue fight card, many observers couldn't help but notice parallels with the plot of Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," a satirical skewering of issues including the erosion of White House decorum in a future when IQs have plummeted and a sports drink corporation owns the country, whose voters elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, "five-time ultimate smackdown champion and porn superstar," as president.
"If anyone defends Trump saying there will be a UFC fight on the White House lawn never listen to them again," former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois wrote on the social media site X Friday, adding that Trump's announcement was like the "plot to 'Idiocracy' with an equally stupid-ass president."
Another X user fumed: "This is what happens when a failed empire hits rock bottom and throws a party about it. UFC fight on the White House lawn to celebrate 250 years of what used to be a country with brains. This ain't strength, this is pure fucking Idiocracy. Straight out of Rome before it burned, give the mob a fight and some burgers while the world collapses around them.
Yet another social media critic joked that "'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary from the future, sent back in time as a warning to us all."
Some critics pointed to the decadeslong business ties between Trump and UFC President and CEO Dana White, who has donated at least $1 million to Trump's campaign coffers.
Others noted the "bread and circuses" vibes of Trump's proposed event, which some called a cynical ploy meant to distract from the devastating impact of policies like Friday's signing of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations, while ballooning the deficit and leaving millions of Americans without desperately needed health insurance coverage and food assistance.
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP. But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn," New York Times opinion contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Bluesky. "America, F-YEAH!"
Writing for The Guardian Saturday, Karim Zidan asserted: "Donald Trump's UFC stunt is more than a circus. It's authoritarian theater."
"It carries shades of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, particularly its obsession with masculinity, spectacle, and nationalism—but with a modern, American twist," he wrote. "Fascist Italy used rallies, parades, and sports events to project strength and unity."
"Similarly, Trump has relied on the UFC to project his tough-guy image, and to celebrate his brand of nationalistic masculinity," Zidan continued. "From name-dropping champions who endorse him to suggesting a tournament that would pit UFC fighters against illegal migrants, Trump has repeatedly found ways to make UFC-style machismo a part of his political brand."
"There was once a time when the U.S. could point to the authoritarian pageantry of regimes like Mussolini's Italy and claim at least some moral distance. That line is no longer visible," he added. "What was once soft power borrowed from strongmen is now being proudly performed on America's own front lawn."
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