WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for failing to release public records about a set of regulatory rollbacks that would dismantle vital Endangered Species Act protections for hundreds of imperiled species across the country including monarch butterflies, hellbenders and Florida manatees.

Today’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service to disclose records about how these rollbacks were developed.

“Americans want to live in a country where animals and plants on the brink of extinction get the protections they need to survive. The Trump administration is hiding information about its efforts to gut these protections,” said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at the Center. “Widespread public support for the Endangered Species Act makes the administration’s secrecy around these rules all the more insidious. Trump hands out favors to his billionaire friends while ignoring the irreplaceable value of our nation’s endangered wildlife. This lawsuit seeks to bring that corruption out into the open.”

The Center filed its FOIA requests months ago, but so far none of the agencies responsible for these proposed rules have shared any of the requested records. The nation’s public records law is meant to give people access to information about the functioning of federal agencies by guaranteeing a response within 20 business days of a request.

Among other harmful changes, the proposed regulations would bar agencies from designating critical habitat for species threatened by climate change and allow corporations and other special interest groups to override scientists’ recommendations regarding habitat protections. Trump’s proposals would also allow agencies to weigh potential economic harms when deciding whether to protect a species. Another set of changes would gut nearly all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act, making it much harder for animals like California spotted owls or alligator snapping turtles to recover.

If finalized, the harm caused by the proposed rules would be massive. They would drive hundreds of plants and animals closer to extinction, and a recent analysis by the Center shows Trump’s plan would especially harm seven of the most at-risk species.

Today’s lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.