16. Department of the Interior · Minor
Rebuild the ESA program for independent, Information Quality Act-compliant decisions
Printed page 534 16. Department of the Interior
“Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision-making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure conformity with the Information Quality Act.”
What has happened
- Partially done
SO 3441 delivers the scientific-quality half. It rescinds the 2024 Departmental scientific-integrity policy (305 DM 3) and the Scientific Integrity Officer Council terms of reference, reinstates SO 3369 Amendment 1, and requires every bureau to "utilize and prioritize publicly available, reproducible, and peer-reviewed science", to explain any decision resting on conclusions that are not publicly supported, peer reviewed or reproducible, and to open a rulemaking on making Departmental scientific information, raw data, analyzes, methodologies and modeling public. Applied to the Fish and Wildlife Service that is the information-quality discipline the Quote's second limb asks for, and the July 2026 ESA rules rebuild the decision framework around economic and national-security impacts. Nothing addresses the first limb: no order, rule or policy ends the Service's reliance on species specialists, and no allowlisted source records a change in who advises on listings.
- Secretary's Order 3441, signed text — §4 reinstates SO 3369 Amendment 1; §5(c) orders all scientific data relied on for decision-making posted publicly by January 16, 2026
- Secretary's Order 3441, “Implementing the Requirements of Executive Order 14303, Restoring Gold Standard Science” (August 29, 2025)
- Interior press release: Trump Administration Finalizes Endangered Species Act Regulation Reform
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
A two-part ask. The Information Quality half has an instrument; the “end reliance on species specialists” half does not.
- Action
- create
- Object
- Endangered Species Act decision-making program at the Fish and Wildlife Service
- ID
- 1511