WASHINGTON— The Trump administration announced issuance of two rules today substantially weakening protections for the nation’s struggling plants and animals. One action rescinded a rule that provided blanket protections for species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The other will reduce protections for the places where endangered species live by allowing corporations to limit critical habitat designations.

“These rules are a one-way ticket to extinction for our most imperiled animals and plants, from monarch butterflies to giraffes to alligator snapping turtles,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species codirector at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump is bending over backward for corporate polluters by ripping away the blanket that protects so many struggling wildlife species as well as the air we breathe, the water we drink and the natural places where we seek peace of mind. This is the last thing we need in the middle of an extinction crisis, and we’ll fight it with everything we’ve got.”

Often referred to as the “blanket rule,” the rule rescinded by the Trump administration today automatically prohibited actions that kill or injure threatened species or destroy their habitat, as well as international trade. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will now have to issue a specific rule detailing the protections that individual species receive, and for the first time will have to consider the economic impacts of any protections. This will create additional work for the already beleaguered agency and potentially mean species receive little to no protection.

The Endangered Species Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to balance the benefits of designating a particular area as critical habitat against the benefits of excluding an area. The rule passed today by the Trump administration will force the Service to accept at face value claims by corporations and landowners of economic impacts from designating critical habitat, which could greatly limit the amount and quality of habitat protected for imperiled wildlife.

“The way this is written, a landowner could falsely claim they planned to build the next Disneyland on their property so designating critical habitat would supposedly cost them tens of millions of dollars,” Greenwald said. “This rule is clearly intended to prevent the protection of the wild places that endangered animals and plants need to survive. It’s a despicable move that cheapens the value of our most imperiled wildlife so corporations can make more money. Anyone can make outrageous claims about how much their property is worth, but that shouldn’t be taken as gospel.”

The Center and allies plan to challenge both rules in federal court.

These rules follow finalization of a rule largely eliminating habitat protections for endangered species this week, as well as a proposal to allow more killing of grizzly bears.