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Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Regulations Pertaining to Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants

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Animal Welfare Institute filings
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Animal Welfare Institute filed 1 comment on this docket between Dec 23, 2025 and Dec 23, 2025. 137 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 218d ago.

What Animal Welfare Institute filed (1)

Dec 23, 2025· Comment from Animal Welfare Institute· FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0029-14478

December 22, 2025 Submitted via Federal eRulemaking Portal Public Comments Processing Attn: FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0029 United States Fish and Wildlife Service 5275 Leesburg Pike Falls Church, VA 22041-3803 Re: Comments on Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act, Docket Number FWS–HQ–ES–2025–0029 Dear Director Nesvik: The Animal Welfare Institute ("AWI"), on behalf of our members and supporters nationwide, submits the following comments in strong opposition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ("USFWS" or "Service") proposed rulemaking that would revoke the Service's longstanding regulation related to implementation of section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1531, et seq. See 90 Fed. Reg. 52,587 (Nov. 21, 2025). By eliminating the presumptive legal protections for "threatened" species, the proposed rule would significantly undermine the safeguards necessary to support the survival and recovery of threatened species. AWI is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to alleviate animal suffering caused by people. We seek to improve the welfare of animals everywhere: in agriculture, in commerce, in our homes and communities, in research, and in the wild. Since 1951, AWI has advanced its mission through strategically crafted policy and legal advocacy, educational programs, research and analysis, litigation, and engagement with policymakers, scientists, industry, educators, other NGOs, the media, and the public. We seek scientifically-grounded protections for animals in all settings, and robust enforcement of those protections. Section 4(d) of the ESA requires the Service to issue regulations to provide for the conservation of species listed as threatened. Id. § 1533(d). If the Service lists a species as threatened, it has concluded that special protections are necessary to halt that species' decline toward endangerment, and therefore extinction, "within the foreseeable future." 15 U.S.C § 1532(20). As a means of carrying out that directive, the ESA expressly allows the Service to extend the same protections to threatened species as it does to endangered species. Id. § 1533(d). To implement this section of the statute, since 1975 USFWS has relied upon what is referred to as the "blanket 4(d)" rule. Contrary to the clear statutory mandate, the Service now proposes to leave threatened species without the legal protections required by the ESA unless and until the Service issues species-specific regulations. This shifts the presumption for threatened species from protected to unprotected, which, if such species-specific regulations are not issued, directly contravenes the ESA. The proposed rule therefore increases the risk that threatened species will be deprived of protection due to a lack of Service resources necessary to write such special rules. Given the Service's pattern and practice of failing to issue species-specific rules, continuing to extend blanket, baseline protections to threatened species is necessary to effectuate the ESA's mandate. The Service proposes to rescind this 50-year-old definition based on a misinterpretation of the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 400 (2024), and an erroneous assertion that the Service's decades-old definition does not represent the single, best interpretation of the statute. 90 Fed. Reg. at 16,103. USFWS also purports to justify the rescission of the blanket 4(d) rule on policy grounds, yet it fails entirely to acknowledge the facts and circumstances that gave rise to the issuance of the blanket 4(d) rule. Rescission of this rule will inevitably hinder recovery and diminish the effectiveness of the ESA. AWI therefore urges USFWS to withdraw the proposed rule. AWI specifically endorses and incorporates by reference the comments filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center ("SELC") on behalf of itself and numerous other public intere…

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Abstract

Please see the supporting and related materials in this docket for a document that summarizes the proposed rule.

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Co-filers (137)

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Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Regulations Pertaining to Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (FWS) — Animal Welfare Institute | OpenPolis