For 53 years, the Endangered Species Act has been one of America's most effective environmental laws. Ninety-nine percent of species listed under it have avoided extinction — the bald eagle, the gray wolf, the humpback whale. Now, a bill moving through the U.S. House of Representatives threatens to dismantle it.

H.R. 1897, the Endangered Species Act Amendments Act of 2025, was introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR). Despite language in the bill about improving conservation, what it actually does is systematically weaken the law at nearly every level. It would drag out the timeline for a species to receive federal protection to anywhere from 5 to 10 years — time that critically endangered animals simply do not have. It would limit the designation of habitat that species need to survive, shift key responsibilities to state agencies that lack the resources to handle them, eliminate judicial review of important decisions, and replace existing U.S. import standards for sensitive species with weaker international treaty rules.

The bill also includes provisions that would make it easier for trophy hunters to bring kills of African elephants and lions back into the United States — and would effectively repeal existing regulations designed to protect those species. What happens to U.S. wildlife law doesn't stay in the U.S. When America weakens its standards for importing threatened species, it sends a signal to the rest of the world and undermines international conservation efforts that depend on American leadership.

The Endangered Species Act has never been a partisan issue. It passed the Senate unanimously in 1973. It has protected species that Americans across every region and political background care about. H.R. 1897 is not a reform. It is a rollback — one that would make it harder to protect endangered species, harder to hold bad actors accountable, and easier to profit from wildlife at the expense of its survival.

We are calling on Congress to reject H.R. 1897 and preserve the integrity of the Endangered Species Act.