The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) applauded a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) decision to repeal the blanket 4(d) rule in a recent joint public comment.

The two organizations filed a lawsuit in late 2024 challenging the agency’s previous adoption of the rule. RMEF’s primary criticism is that the blanket rule uses a one-size-fits-all approach by treating endangered and threatened species the same. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) allows for less restrictions and more flexibility for threatened species, which provides incentives to states and private landowners to make progress towards recovery. USFWS reversed course and agreed in the summer of 2025 and will rescind the rule by the end of 2026.

RMEF and PERC submitted their comments (see below) and made several main points during a 30-day comment period after USFWS published its decision in late 2025:

  • USFWS should finalize recission of the blanket rule to meet the ESA’s goal of recovering species
  • Restoring the ESA distinction between endangered and threatened species would remove barriers to voluntary conservation, including habitat restoration, ensuring science rather than arbitrary whim drives development of ESA regulations and gives states needed flexibility to manage recovering species
  • Rescinding the rule increases incentives for proactive conservation and the recovery of more species
  • The rule violates the ESA by reversing, without statutory authorization, Congress’ choice to limit regulation of take of endangered species, circumventing the requirement to assess what is necessary and advisable to conserve each threatened species, and ignoring the incentives needed to recover species

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December 22, 2025

Re: Proposed Rescission of the “Blanket Rule” that Regulates Threatened Species as if They were Endangered

Dear Director Nesvik,

The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and Rocky Mountain Elk  Foundation (RMEF) applaud the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) proposal to rescind the “blanket rule” that arbitrarily regulates endangered and threatened species the same and ignores the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) text, science, species’ unique needs, and recovery progress. For those reasons, PERC and RMEF filed a lawsuit challenging the previous administration’s adoption of the blanket rule.

In July, President Trump directed the Service, and other federal agencies, to “recover America’s fish and wildlife populations through proactive, voluntary, on-the-ground conservation efforts.” Rescinding the blanket rule is a vital and necessary step toward fulfilling that policy. The blanket rule arbitrarily prohibits proactive, voluntary conservation, including habitat restoration. And, in doing so, it discourages species’ recovery. Tailored rules, however, remove roadblocks for proactive conservation efforts, including prescribed fire, forest thinning, and stream restoration.

The blanket rule also ignores science and the important role of state wildlife agencies. Under it, the Service never assesses how to best promote the recovery of most species, despite the ESA requiring this analysis for every threatened species. Instead, it imposes an illegal and arbitrary one-size-fits-all approach that Congress rejected when it limited Section 9 to endangered species. Instead, Congress intended states to take a greater role in recovering and managing threatened species. Yet the blanket rule, without explanation, deprives states of the flexibility needed to fill that role.

Finally, as the Service explained in 2019, and reaffirmed in 2024, developing tailored rules for each threatened species “incentivize conservation for both endangered and threatened species.” The blanket rule, by treating endangered and threatened species the same, removes this incentive by denying states and landowners any reward for recovery progress.

We elaborate on these points in the detailed comments submitted with this letter. Thank you for your continued leadership and focus on species recovery.

Sincerely,

Property and Environment Research Center

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

(Photo credit: Jim Peaco/NPS)