SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Seven environmental and animal groups led by non-profit Earthjustice Wednesday brought a lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for weakening the protection of endangered species in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Earthjustice said it was suing the federal government at a U.S. district court in San Francisco on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Parks Conservation Association, WildEarth Guardians, and the Humane Society of the United States.
The groups accused the Trump administration of unreasonably changing requirements for compliance of stipulations of the Endangered Species Act, which would have ensured that endangered species were not jeopardized or threatened.
"The administration inserted new changes into the final rules that were never made public and not subject to public comment, cutting the American people out of the decision-making process," Earthjustice said.
"These regulatory changes seek to make protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species harder and less predictable. We're going to court to set things right," said Kristen Boyles, Earthjustice attorney.
"Scientists around the world are sounding the alarm about extinction, but the Trump administration is removing safeguards for the nation's endangered species. We'll do everything in our power to stop these rules from going forward," Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
On Aug. 12, Trump ordered to make changes to the country's 45-year-old Endangered Species Act that would allow the federal government to raise economic cost of listing a species.
Critics have said the changes will weaken the protection of endangered species and accelerate the loss of animals and plants at a record pace.
Earthjustice said in a tweet Wednesday that the endangered resident orca population in Puget Sound in the U.S. state of Washington has fallen to 73, which was blamed on "short-sighted human actions that are causing an ecological crisis."
