Amend the Endangered Species Act to restore its original purpose

Research notes

• The interagency-cooperation (section 7) proposed rule of 2025-11-21 (2025-20551) had no final rule among the federal records we keep and search as of 2026-08-26; H.R. 9901 (2026-07-23) would nullify the harm rule (introduced only).
• Litigation over the 2026 rules was not searched (CourtListener’s search could not be reached); the federal court dockets we keep and search, from CourtListener, showed only pre-existing ESA cases. If a court vacates a rule, the executive events stay attempted (they never changed the statute).
• Moved from attempted to partial on review, under the rule “attempted if it routes around, partial if it eliminates”: rescinding the “harm” definition and the blanket 4(d) rule, and rewriting critical-habitat designation to weigh economic and national-security impacts, removes the regulations that actually embody the use of the Act the Quote objects to — the piece the executive alone can deliver. The statute itself is untouched, which is why it is not done.
• H.R. 1897 was ordered reported and given a rule but has not passed the House. For an ask that needs an act of Congress, committee action does not count as progress, so it moves nothing. Passage by the House would be attempted; enactment of part of it would be partial on the statutory half.
• Reviewed 2026-09-24: the thing to watch here is a reversal, and it has taken a first step. S.J. Res. 204, a Congressional Review Act joint resolution disapproving the FWS/NMFS rule Rescinding the Definition of “Harm” Under the Endangered Species Act — one of the three rules this item’s 2026-07-21 partial rests on — was discharged from Environment and Public Works by petition under 5 U.S.C. 802(c) and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders (Calendar No. 618) on 2026-09-15. A discharge petition needs thirty senators, and once discharged a CRA resolution’s motion to proceed is not debatable, so this is further along than an ordinary calendar placement. Calendar placement still does not count as progress, and nothing moves: this item stays partial. It is recorded because if that resolution is ever enacted, the “harm” rescission is undone by operation of 5 U.S.C. 801(b) and cannot be reissued in substantially the same form, which would take a piece off this item’s partial (the critical-habitat and blanket-rule repeals would still stand, so the rung would likely hold) and is the clearest reversal path on the board for any Chapter 16 or 21 ask. The resolution was first matched to #1874, an NMFS–FWS overlap ask it does not touch; it belongs here. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119sjres204pcs/html/BILLS-119sjres204pcs.htm Checked 2026-09-23: govinfo’s bill-status file (govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/119/sjres/BILLSTATUS-119sjres204.xml) and the Congress.gov API both show 2026-09-15 as the latest action — no motion to proceed, no vote. Enactment would need the signature of the President whose agencies issued the rule, or a veto override.
• Also 2026-09-24: H.R. 181 was ordered reported. To amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to provide that artificially propagated animals shall be treated the same under that Act as naturally propagated animals was ordered reported in the nature of a substitute, 21–17, on 2026-09-15. This is the record that was matched to this item. Committee action does not count as progress, and this item is at partial in any case; the bill is named here to show it was read. It is a narrower amendment than H.R. 1897 and would not on its own restore “the original purpose” the Quote names. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr181ih/html/BILLS-119hr181ih.htm
• Reviewed 2026-10-12: the “harm” rescission is in litigation, and nothing blocks it yet. On 2026-10-07, DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division filed motions for summary judgment defending the rescission in four cases. The release names them by their exhibit files: NWF v. FWS, DW v. FWS, CA v. Interior and EPIC v. NMFS, in the Northern District of California and the District of South Carolina. It calls them “the first in a series of similar challenges across the country to reach this stage”. That is the litigation the second note above said had not been searched. The government is defending, and no order is described, so the partial holds. Read only in our stored copy of the DOJ release (2026-10-08), which serves to find the cases, not as Evidence: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-motions-defending-rule-rescinding-regulatory-definitions-harm-it . It was flagged as pointing toward the ask. If a court vacates the rescission, the 2026-07-21 partial loses one of its three rules, as with S.J. Res. 204 above.

Reviewed 2026-10-14. One of the four “harm” dockets is found: National Wildlife Federation v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, D.S.C. No. 2:26-cv-02897-RMG (Judge Gergel), filed 2026-07-17. The complaint (read from the RECAP PDF) challenges Rescinding the Definition of “Harm”, 91 FR 43,300 (2026-07-14), under the APA and NEPA, and asks the court to vacate it and reinstate the definitions. The Services answered on 2026-09-21 and moved for summary judgment on 2026-10-07 (entry 17), which is the motion DOJ’s release describes. Plaintiffs opposed on 2026-10-13. No order, so the partial holds. The other three (DW, CA v. Interior, EPIC v. NMFS) are still to be numbered. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73640462/national-wildlife-federation-v-united-states-fish-and-wildlife-service/