Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

16. Department of the Interior · Notable

End Fish and Wildlife Service use of ESA Section 10(j) experimental populations

Not started

534 16. Department of the Interior

“Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10( j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The Fish and Wildlife Service has not been directed to stop using section 10(j), and no rule or policy limiting experimental-population reintroductions to historic range or qualifying habitat was found. The Service issued a request for information on 2026-04-06 about how Colorado is implementing the 2023 gray wolf 10(j) rule — depredation, compensation, effects on ungulate herds — which is an inquiry into one population's management, not an end to the practice. The ESA rulemaking package finalized in July 2026 (#1503) revised the "harm" definition, the blanket 4(d) rule and critical-habitat exclusions; it did not touch 10(j).

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

One request for information about one 10(j) rule is the whole record.

Checked against the full 2026 Unified Agenda on reginfo.gov (Interior, agencyCd 1000, active stages, read 2026-09-01; agenda published in the Federal Register 2026-08-14). Three entries touch section 10(j) and none ends the practice. RIN 1018-BF97, “Experimental Populations; Reorganization of Species-Specific Regulations for Experimental Populations” (FWS, Proposed Rule Stage, Previously Published, NPRM projected 10/2026), is housekeeping that would restructure 50 CFR part 17 subpart H so it has “capacity for the logical addition of new designations”. RIN 1018-BI68 (Proposed Rule Stage, Previously Published, NPRM projected 07/2026) removes the Bitterroot grizzly nonessential experimental population that never took effect, while “a new environmental impact statement … is being developed to evaluate options for restoring grizzly bears to the Bitterroot Ecosystem”. RIN 1018-BG76 would establish a new nonessential experimental population of the Santa Ana sucker. Subject area, not this ask’s object — and the third points the opposite way. Recorded so the next pass does not re-search it.

Action
restrict
Object
Section 10(j) experimental population reintroductions
ID
1507