First, Sorensen has been journaling in Minnesota, has moved to South Dakota, and has moved her publishing to substack: https://bluestemprairie.substack.com/
Her most recent post is about the Trump savaging of endangered species habitat protection, a move Trump aims at enabling developers into otherwise protected lands to exploit rather than protect. Trump acts, presumably with cronies in mind, not the environment nor living critters, about which he likely doesn't give two shits.
Sorensen's post, here. Readers who check her substack will note the chance to help Sorensen monetize her journalism, so she doesn't say, "Fuck it," and quit. Her work merits it's current ongoing status, into the future, so check it and possibly help.
THAT SAID -
Sorensen links to one item and republishes another, so Crabgrass goes to the originals. One a radio podcast, the other a text.
Native America Calling seems from the one item to be a call-in, with guests, or at least so for: https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/monday-july-20-2026-tribes-sue-after-feds-redefine-harm-in-endangered-species-act-upend-decades-of-land-conservation/
https://stateline.org on July 20 posted: The feds no longer protect endangered species habitat. States say they can’t pick up the slack. -- Few wildlife agencies have the authority to regulate habitat under state laws.
Sorensen republishes the full item, Crabgrass will extract from the start:
The Trump administration is removing protections from the key places where endangered species live, saying states can keep the areas safe.
But experts say states aren’t equipped for the task.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration finalized a major change to the Endangered Species Act, rolling back protections for the forests, wetlands, deserts and other critical habitats that many plants and animals rely on.
The new rule will open many landscapes to development, logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. Wildlife officials — in both conservative and liberal states — had expressed strong concerns about the proposal, saying it would threaten their plans to safeguard endangered species.
But federal officials framed the decision as a move to give “freedom” to state leaders to manage wildlife without burdensome federal regulations.
States that wish to continue protecting habitats can do so under state law, the Interior Department and other federal agencies wrote in their lengthy new regulations.
But legal experts and wildlife veterans say that almost no states have endangered species laws on the books that allow state officials to prevent habitat destruction in the name of saving wildlife.
While many states have laws to stop poaching and direct killing of wildlife, the protection of nesting trees, spawning streams and other resources has long fallen to the federal Endangered Species Act and the agencies that enforce it.
“It’s not going to be a situation where the states can easily just jump in here and fill the void,” said Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration. “It’s not going to help states, and it’s going to make it worse for the species.”
Many wildlife experts also noted that state wildlife agencies are already underfunded as it is. Taking on the massive regulatory system that prevents developers and extractive industries from destroying critical habitat would require far more resources than those agencies have available.
A coalition of environmental groups and tribal nations have filed lawsuits challenging the federal rollback.
The ‘harm’ rule
On July 10, the federal departments of Interior and Commerce announced they had finalized a rule rescinding the longstanding definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act.
For decades, federal officials have scrutinized logging projects that would cut old-growth trees where owls build their nests, and agriculture operations that diverted water from streams where salmon return to spawn.
But now, the feds are pivoting to a much more limited definition of “harm.” Only actions that directly injure or kill the animals themselves will be considered a violation of endangered species law.
[... Quoting] Karrigan Börk, a law professor and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. “If you drain a salmon river during the summer when the salmon aren’t in it, ultimately it has the same impact of killing off that whole species.”
In its announcement, the Trump administration framed the move as restoring the “original intent” of the Endangered Species Act and reducing regulations that punished people for “indirect or speculative impacts” to wildlife.
The Interior Department did not respond to a Stateline interview request.
A 2019 study published in Conservation Science and Practice of species added to the list of endangered species from 1975 to 2017 found that only 17% of them faced threats from direct killing, while 81% faced habitat loss.
“It’s common sense that we can’t save a species unless we save the places that they live,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit conservation group that is planning to sue the federal government over the change. “This is an attempted death blow to the Endangered Species Act.”
Some industry groups praised the move. The American Petroleum Institute and other oil and gas groups said in public comments that they supported the effort to limit habitat protections, but expressed concern that the Trump administration’s move to rescind the “harm” definition without issuing a new interpretation could allow a future president or the courts to issue a more expansive reading of the law.
It is really hard to love the fossil fuel giants as Trump does, where their money was a springboard to his second term, and such. Damned hard. Impossible for Crabgrass.
continuing-
[...]
Going to court
Last week, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging the “harm” rule. A pair of tribes in Washington state filed their own lawsuit, asserting that the decision will infringe on tribal fisheries that the federal government is obligated to protect under treaty agreements.
Some legal experts expect a flood of lawsuits over specific proposed projects.
“Courts are going to have to figure out on a case-by-case basis what’s covered and what’s not covered,” said Börk, the UC Davis professor. “It’s going to lead to widespread confusion over the next decades over what’s illegal or legal, and it’s going to make it harder for developers and landowners to know whether they have liability or not.”
And the authors note litigation could reach the Supremes, who'd possibly fuck things up as badly as they've fucked things against the stench of money in politics. Then a future administration would have a big rock to push uphill if some phony "Constitutional" property rights thing gets cooked from litigation that billion dollar corporate money prevails over a few "extincted" species where others, of course, exist. It could be that bad
A new Dem administration and Congress could amend the statute if winning both in 2028, but that would still leave the Supremes to their will to impose bad law.
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Which is a point to segue to EmptyWheel, here, which today deals with the Impeachment possibilities against sitting "Justices." It's worth the time to read and it is building commentator content as this post is being written and finished.