Pacific Legal Foundation applauds repeal of Endangered Species Act’s ‘blanket’ 4(d) rule

Washington, DC; July 21, 2026: Pacific Legal Foundation applauds a newly announced rule that will roll back an unlawful expansion of government power. Today, the Trump administration confirmed the repeal of the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) “blanket” 4(d) rule, a provision that extended protections generally reserved for endangered species to threatened species.

“The Trump administration was right to repeal the blanket 4(d) rule. The Endangered Species Act simply does not authorize the indiscriminate extension of the ‘take’ prohibition to threatened species. Despite that, for many years federal bureaucrats have viewed it as a blank check to control land use across the country,” said Charles Yates, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation.

Today’s change requires the government to individually assess whether a newly listed “threatened” species requires the expansive protections the ESA automatically provides for endangered species and to consider the economic costs of extending such protections, in accordance with the ESA’s requirements.

The Trump administration revisited the rule following the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the doctrine of Chevron deference, as well as a March 2025 legal victory by Pacific Legal Foundation. In that PLF victory, Kansas Natural Resource Coalition v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, a Texas court ruled against the agency’s illegal extension of the “take” prohibition to the lesser prairie-chicken and held that the ESA requires the government to consider the economic costs of expanding regulations before extending additional protections to a particular threatened species.

Pacific Legal Foundation continues to challenge government land grabs at the local, state, and federal levels.