{beacon} Energy & Environment Energy & Environment The Big Story Trump administration memo reduces ESA protections The Trump administration has further reduced protections for wildlife and plants under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). © Joy Asico, Associated Press Content Services for Center for Biological Diversity The law prohibits…
Page B2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 17 September 2026
Trump feasts 100 outdoorsmen at Rose Garden dinner, quietly thins protections for what they hunt
As it ran on the front
The Endangered Species Act, a federal protection born of statute, died this week. It is survived by a guest list of more than one hundred hunters, anglers, and outdoor-industry officials, and preceded in death by two siblings: the Clean Water Act's stream and wetland protections, which the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers said on September 4th they would consider narrowing further, and the rule limiting planet-heating pollution from coal and gas power plants, which the EPA moved on September 14th to end outright.
The family gathered Thursday evening in the Rose Garden. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was among the invited. The President told the assembled hunters and anglers that public lands belong to the public, then signed two executive orders reversing Biden-era restrictions on that public land, and mentioned that an "Outdoors Act 2.0" was on its way. Whippersnapper energy, promising a sequel to a bill that has not yet had its premiere.…
…(cont) The next day's wire carried the quieter news. A memo reducing protections under the Endangered Species Act — the law that prohibits any "take" of a listed species — moved that same week without a Rose Garden, without a toast. No guest announced it from a podium. It simply happened, the way the water rule happened on September 4th and the power-plant rule happened on September 14th: a filing, not a party.
Call it the pattern, if patterns are allowed a name: what gets a hundred guests and a signature ceremony is access — who gets to hunt, who gets to fish. What gets a memo alone, on a quiet news day, is the thing that decides whether there is anything left on that land to hunt or fish for. One is a photograph. The other is a species. The dinner made the evening news. The memo made a paragraph.
This is not a complaint about hunters, who are, in this columnist's long experience, decent people who understand a food chain better than most policy shops do. It is a complaint about the order of operations: the invitation goes out before the impact study, the toast comes before the count. Malarkey, dressed as access.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that anyone invited to the next Rose Garden dinner request, out loud, before any signature is added, a copy of whatever memo is moving through the building that same week.
“They didn't hold a press conference for the memo — you throw the party where the cameras already are, and you file the paperwork where they aren't. Same administration, same week: one hand hands out access to the land, the other hand quietly stops protecting what's still living on it. That's not two stories, that's one bill, and hunters didn't get to read the fine print either.”
“This is simply about restoring access for sportsmen to public land that's been over-regulated for years — real people, real boots, real — okay, "over-regulated," did I say that? What I mean is the hunting orders and the species memo are two completely separate policy tracks that happen to move through the same building in the same week, purely a scheduling matter, nothing to read into there.”
The receipts
In what environmental advocates describe as "another gift to the fossil fuel industry," the Trump administration plans to end rules limiting the release of planet-heating emissions from power plants that burn coal and gas. Power plants are considered the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US and account for…
President Trump will host Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, along with more than 100 outdoorsmen, for a White House Rose Garden dinner Thursday evening, a source familiar with the event told The Hill's broadcasting partner, NewsNation. Trump will reportedly speak during the event and sign two executive orders reversing former President…
President Trump hosted over 100 hunters, anglers and outdoor industry officials for a dinner in the Rose Garden Thursday to announce executive orders rolling back certain hunting and fishing restrictions. “We believe that public lands belong to the American people and to the public, and hunters, fishers, and outdoorsmen should be able to…
· Trump considers narrowing water pollution protections from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
· Trump signs order changing Lake Ontario's name 'effective immediately' from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.