1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

The Trump administration's decision to strip the federal definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act takes effect September 14, and I want you to treat this as an opportunity — not just a crisis to reverse. Congress should use this moment to pass legislation that codifies stronger, more expansive habitat protections than anything that existed before. Habitat destruction is the number-one driver of extinction. The definition being eliminated — protecting species from "significant habitat modification or degradation" — was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1995 and enforced for decades. But restoring that baseline isn't enough. The Swinomish and Squaxin Island tribes are already in court over salmon populations in Puget Sound. Species across the country face threats that the original ESA framework was never designed to handle at this scale. Push for legislation that goes further: broader habitat protections, stronger enforcement mechanisms, and provisions that can't be dismantled by a future administration through a federal register notice. The groups celebrating this rollback are oil companies and construction contractors. That contrast makes the politics clear. This is the moment to build something better, not just patch what was broken.