Sponsors
The bill increases transparency and predictability in ESA decisionmaking and litigation costs (benefiting public oversight, local input, and budgeting) but creates administrative costs and delay risks, raises confidentiality/privacy concerns for businesses and agencies, and may reduce private enforcement of species protections.
Public stakeholders (researchers, conservationists, landowners) and state/Tribal/county governments gain greater access to the underlying scientific and commercial data used in ESA listing and critical-habitat decisions, and local submissions are given explicit weight—improving transparency, opportunities to review/comment, and the relevance of federal assessments.
Taxpayers and the public gain clearer visibility into federal ESA litigation spending through annual reports and a searchable monthly database, enabling better oversight of legal costs, settlements, and agency FTE use.
Parties seeking attorney fees under the ESA (including nonprofit conservation groups) and federal agencies benefit from having fee awards determined under established federal fee-shifting statutes (EAJA and 5 U.S.C. §504), providing clearer, uniform standards and more predictable budgeting/exposure for agencies.
Federal agencies and taxpayers will face increased administrative burdens and costs to collect, review, disaggregate, and publish underlying datasets and monthly litigation data, which could divert staff time, raise compliance costs, and slow rulemaking or conservation work.
Standardizing fee recovery under EAJA/§504 may reduce or limit fee awards for some prevailing plaintiffs compared with prior ESA-specific provisions, weakening private enforcement incentives and potentially reducing ESA enforcement actions that protect species and dependent communities.
Providing full underlying data to State/Tribal/county governments before federal determinations could enable extended reviews, challenges, or politicized processes that delay listings and protections for at-risk species.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Requires Interior to publish data behind ESA listings, share data with States before determinations, disclose federal ESA litigation spending in reports and a monthly database, and align fee awards with EAJA and 5 U.S.C. §504.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Tom McClintock · Last progress January 3, 2025
Requires the Department of the Interior to make public the scientific and commercial data underlying endangered-species listing and critical-habitat decisions, to share that data with affected States before final determinations, and to broaden the legal definition of “data” to explicitly include submissions from State, Tribal, and county governments. It also requires the Interior (with Commerce) to disclose federal spending and related details for lawsuits and administrative proceedings under the Endangered Species Act on an annual report and a monthly searchable database, and it makes ESA fee awards subject to the standards in the Equal Access to Justice Act and 5 U.S.C. §504. The bill creates limited nondisclosure exceptions for state-law protected information and classified Department of Defense material, requires covered federal agencies to provide information for the litigation-disclosure database, and directs that fee awards under the ESA follow existing federal fee statutes rather than the current ESA text.