{"id":650,"date":"2025-04-17T12:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T16:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/?p=650"},"modified":"2025-04-17T13:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T17:02:19","slug":"feds-propose-rescinding-rule-defining-harm-in-endangered-species-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/2025\/04\/17\/feds-propose-rescinding-rule-defining-harm-in-endangered-species-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Propose Rescinding Rule Defining \u201cHarm\u201d in Endangered Species Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (\u201cFWS\u201d) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (\u201cNMFS\u201d) published a notice of proposed rulemaking to rescind the agencies\u2019 respective regulatory definitions of \u201charm\u201d as that term appears in the statutory definition of \u201ctake\u201d in the Endangered Species Act (\u201cESA\u201d), 16 U.S.C. \u00a7 1531 et seq<\/em>.  Comments on the proposed rescission are due by May 19, 2025.  See <\/em>90 Fed. Reg. 16102 (Apr. 17, 2025).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ESA is the principal U.S. law protecting plants and animals that have been designated as likely to face extinction.  The statute therefore broadly prohibits the \u201ctaking\u201d of an endangered species.  The statute itself defines \u201ctake\u201d to mean \u201cto harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.\u201d  16 U.S.C. \u00a7 1532(19).  By regulation, FWS further defined the word \u201charm\u201d to mean \u201can act which actually kills or injures wildlife.  Such an act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.\u201d  50 C.F.R. \u00a7 17.3.  NMFS issued a materially identical definition of “harm.”  50 C.F.R. \u00a7 222.102.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court in Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter<\/em>, 515 U.S. 687 (1995), upheld the regulatory definition of \u201charm,\u201d giving it Chevron<\/em> deference.  Since Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo<\/em>, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), overruled Chevron<\/em>, the agencies now contend that the current definitions do not constitute the \u201cbest reading\u201d of the statutory term \u201charm.\u201d  Instead, the agencies point to the dissenting opinion in Sweet Home<\/em>, which interpreted \u201charm\u201d in light of the traditional understanding of \u201ctake,\u201d which is to kill or capture a wild animal.  Under this view, \u201ctake\u201d requires an affirmative act against the species, not actions that affect the species indirectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agencies recognize that Loper Bright<\/em> itself stated that prior cases that relied on Chevron<\/em> are still subject to statutory stare decisis<\/em>.  However<\/p>\n\n\n\n

under the then prevailing Chevron<\/em> framework, Sweet Home<\/em> held only that the existing regulation is a permissible reading of the ESA, not the only possible such reading.  Our rescission of the regulation definition on the ground that it does not reflect the best reading of the statutory text thus would not only effectuate the Executive Branch\u2019s obligation to \u201ctake Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,\u201d but would also be fully consistent with Sweet Home<\/em>.<\/p>90 Fed. Reg. at 16103<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rescission of the regulatory definition of \u201charm\u201d seems geared to address scenarios in which, for example, a construction project does not directly kill or injure a species but modifies the species\u2019 habitat and thereby forces it to vacate the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rulemaking presents several issues worth considering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First<\/em>, on the substance, while the agencies propose to rescind the definition of \u201charm,\u201d they do not propose rescinding the regulatory definition of \u201charass.\u201d  \u201cHarass\u201d is defined in part to mean \u201cannoying [the species] to such an extent as to significantly disrupt normal behavioral patterns which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.\u201d  50 C. F. R. \u00a7 17.3. (NMFS has no parallel definition of \u201charass.\u201d)  It would seem that most actions that amount to \u201charm\u201d on the basis of habitat degradation would also constitute \u201charassment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second<\/em>, the rulemaking probably has no impact on endangered species maintained in a captive environment.\u00a0 Even if the \u201charm\u201d definition is rescinded, the \u201charass\u201d definition remains and, as it applies to captive wildlife, \u201charass\u201d has been consistently defined by FWS to exclude \u201canimal husbandry practices that meet or exceed the minimum standards for facilities and care under the Animal Welfare Act.\u201d\u00a0 50 C.F.R. \u00a7 17.3.\u00a0 That is, while a captive endangered species cannot be lawfully \u201charassed\u201d under the ESA, there is no such harassment if the endangered species is held under conditions that comply with the Animal Welfare Act (“AWA”). However, since “harm” was not defined with a link to the AWA, the deletion of the “harm” definition would eliminate the potential ambiguity that a captive species can be “harmed” even if the actions at issue are AWA-compliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third<\/em>, the rulemaking will likely test the contours of the Loper Bright<\/em> pronouncement on statutory stare decisis<\/em>.  Sweet Home<\/em> was a Chevron<\/em>-based case, but the agencies seem to be taking the position that statutory stare decisis<\/em> will not control the outcome because their actions are required by the Executive Branch\u2019s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.  90 Fed. Reg. at 16103 (citing U.S. Const. art. II, \u00a7 3).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (\u201cFWS\u201d) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (\u201cNMFS\u201d) published a notice of proposed rulemaking to rescind the agencies\u2019 respective regulatory definitions of \u201charm\u201d as that term appears in the statutory definition of \u201ctake\u201d in the Endangered Species Act (\u201cESA\u201d), 16 U.S.C. \u00a7 1531 et seq.  … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Feds Propose Rescinding Rule Defining \u201cHarm\u201d in Endangered Species Act”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,1098,29,6,24,12,105,8,5,1097,13,7],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-animal-law","tag-chevron-deference","tag-endangered-species","tag-endangered-species-act","tag-esa","tag-fish-wildlife-service","tag-harass","tag-harm","tag-john-simpson","tag-loper-bright","tag-national-marine-fisheries-service","tag-take"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}