Congress is considering a sweeping permitting package, S. 5653, and they’ve bypassed the usual hearing and debate process to schedule a Senate vote for early November 2026. Concerningly, within the bill are several provisions copied from the controversial ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897) that would weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA), one of our nation’s most successful conservation laws.
For more than 50 years, the ESA has served as a safety net against extinction, helping recover iconic species such as bald eagles and Steller sea lions while preventing the loss of hundreds more. Its success rests on simple principles: decisions should be guided by the best available science, informed by expert wildlife agencies, and subject to meaningful public accountability.
The provisions imported from the ESA Amendments Act strike at each of those principles. They would weaken the role of scientific expertise, create new opportunities for political interference in wildlife decisions, and make it harder for the public to challenge unlawful actions in court.
In other words, if you were concerned about the ESA Amendments Act, you should be concerned about the Senate permitting bill. Here are three ways those controversial ESA rollbacks have been tucked into legislation that is supposedly about permitting reform.
1. No More “Best Available Science” Standard
The first ESA rollback hidden in the Senate permitting bill appears in Section 1301, adapted from Section 2(e) of the ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897). It would eliminate one of the Endangered Species Act’s most important principles: that decisions must be based on the “best scientific and commercial data available.”
When writing the ESA, Congress intentionally left “best available science” undefined. That flexibility is a feature, not a flaw. Wildlife agencies must be able to evaluate the full body of available evidence and make decisions in the face of uncertainty, which is unavoidable when dealing with rare and declining species.
That flexibility matters because conservation decisions are often made before every question has been answered. Marine mammals, sea turtles, and other ocean wildlife do not wait for perfect data before facing new threats. Scientists may have strong evidence that boat strikes are increasing for Florida manatees or that an oil spill could threaten endangered sea turtles long before they can fully quantify every impact.
The ESA allows wildlife agencies to respond to those warning signs using the best available science instead of waiting for an unrealistically high bar of certainty while populations decline. Waiting for complete scientific certainty means waiting until it is too late to stop extinction.
By creating new barriers around how scientific information is evaluated, the Senate permitting bill will block protections precisely when species need them most. When a population is already struggling, delays can mean more boats striking manatees, more oil spills, and fewer opportunities to prevent irreversible losses before they occur.
2. forcing Special Consideration of State-Collected Data Creates Opportunities for Politics to Outweigh Science
Another provision of the Senate permitting bill, Section 1306, was lifted from Section 305 ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897), which would require federal wildlife agencies to give special consideration to state-collected data in Endangered Species Act decision-making.
At first glance, that may sound reasonable. States collect important wildlife data and already play a significant role in the ESA process. Nothing in current law prevents federal agencies from considering the data provided by states, and they routinely do.
The problem is that requiring special consideration for state-collected data creates new opportunities for politics to outweigh science. States vary dramatically in their resources, methodologies, conservation priorities, and political pressures. While some states invest heavily in wildlife research and recovery, others have repeatedly pushed to weaken protections for species that are unpopular with certain industries or political constituencies.
That’s particularly concerning because the members of Congress pushing the hardest for this change to the law come from states such as Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, where political leaders have aggressively sought to remove federal protections for species including gray wolves and grizzly bears. In fact, Montana recently acknowledged that it had overestimated its wolf population by hundreds of animals, raising serious questions about efforts to force the consideration of state-collected data in decisions that can determine whether imperiled species receive federal protection.
3. Restricting Access to the Courts
Another concerning provision is Section 1305 of the Senate permitting bill, which incorporates language from Section 505 of the ESA Amendments Act and would make it harder to meaningfully enforce the Endangered Species Act when agencies fail to follow the law.
Currently, court challenges to ESA consultation (the review process for whether an industry project will push a species closer to extinction) are heard in federal district courts across the country, where judges can develop the factual record and evaluate the specific impacts of a project. The Senate permitting bill would instead funnel every ESA consultation challenge nationwide into the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, regardless of where the project is located.
This change would concentrate complex, fact-intensive cases in a single court that already handles one of the nation’s heaviest dockets. Rather than streamlining the process, it risks creating bottlenecks, increasing delays, and making judicial review less accessible for local communities, Tribes, and conservation organizations seeking to protect wildlife.
Courts play an essential role in ensuring federal agencies follow the law and rely on sound science. By making it more difficult to challenge unlawful decisions, this provision weakens one of the ESA’s most important accountability mechanisms. And when endangered species and critical habitat are at stake, delayed or diminished review can mean irreversible harm. Once habitat is destroyed or a species is pushed closer to extinction, no court can undo the damage.
This provision is not about improving permitting efficiency. It is about limiting access to the courts and making it harder to enforce one of our nation’s most successful conservation laws.
The Work to Defend the Endangered Species Act Continues
The reality is that the ESA has a strong track record of balancing conservation and development while preventing extinction. Around 95% of ESA consultations are completed in two weeks, and 84% of Americans support protecting endangered species and the places they depend on.
Yet the Senate permitting bill imports controversial provisions from the ESA Amendments Act that would weaken scientific decision-making, invite political interference, and make it harder to hold agencies accountable.
Their inclusion in this bill is a reminder that efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act are far from over. The ESA Amendments Act may not have become law, but many of its provisions are already being repackaged and reintroduced through other legislative vehicles.
But history gives us reason for hope. Time and again, wildlife advocates from all walks of life, including students, scientists, community leaders, Tribes, conservation organizations, and concerned citizens, have come together to defend the Endangered Species Act and stop efforts that would undermine its mission of preventing extinction.
The work is not finished, and these ideas may resurface in future legislation. But this debate has also shown that there is a strong and growing movement ready to stand up for wildlife and ensure that ESA decisions remain grounded in science, accountability, and the public interest. That movement will be essential not only in defeating these provisions in the Senate permitting bill but in safeguarding the Endangered Species Act for generations to come.