Keeping an Eagle Eye on Bird Conservation Policy

If you care about birds, you probably already know that they’re in trouble. The threats they face, just at the federal level, are staggering: Current bills and rulemakings propose weakening the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Northwest Forest Plan, and the Greater Sage-Grouse national conservation strategy, all at the same time.

This is happening against the backdrop of federal agency staff reductions and proposed program cuts. The loss of knowledgeable and experienced experts and the slashes to program budgets have greatly diminished the capacity of federal agencies to carry out conservation projects. Maintaining current funding and staffing levels is crucial for bird conservation work to continue.

ABC and our partners are closely monitoring the many proposed bills and regulations that could affect bird conservation. We’re using every avenue we have to take bold action for birds by tracking the issues, weighing in through comments and testimony, connecting with legislators, and, importantly, engaging our supporters in taking action, too. Here’s a roundup of issues we’re watching and opportunities to act.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has an undeniably strong track record: Ninety-nine percent of the thousands of species listed under the Act have been saved from extinction. No other law has proven as successful at recovering species on the brink of extinction and safeguarding biodiversity in the U.S. Passed with bipartisan support and signed into law in 1973, the ESA has made possible the recovery of iconic species such as the Brown Pelican, ʻIo (Hawaiian Hawk), and even the Bald Eagle.

This bedrock law is threatened by regulatory proposals that could weaken ESA protections and even re-imagine the intent of the law. The changes would make it mandatory to weigh economic impacts against the need to list species under the ESA, decrease protections for threatened species, reduce areas designated as “critical habitat,” and increase the subjectivity of decisions. ABC strongly opposed all of these changes in four separate dockets, and, along with our partners and supporters, we submitted more than 8,000 comments against the proposals in late 2025.

The ESA faces challenges from legislative efforts, too. Numerous bills introduced in 2025 attacked the ESA by proposing the removal (or “delisting”) of species from the endangered species list, and by weakening provisions that currently protect species from losing habitat to development.

Federal agencies are required to evaluate how their actions — permitting oil and gas drilling near Greater Sage-Grouse habitat, developing an airport close to a marsh where Black Rails nest, or greenlighting highway construction near a holdout for the Florida Scrub-Jay, for example — will impact wildlife, the environment, and human wellbeing. That’s thanks to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), passed in 1970.

On January 8, 2026, a finalized rule went into effect that removes all of NEPA’s implementing regulations. These regulations have guided agencies through the process of conducting environmental reviews for decades, ensuring careful consideration of the environmental impacts of agency actions. Now that all of the rules have been rescinded, it will be up to individual agencies to issue their own guidance.

In addition to regulations, NEPA is being threatened by legislative reform. The House of Representatives has passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, H.R. 4776. The SPEED Act creates sweeping new exceptions from environmental reviews and limitations on judicial review. These changes would effectively dismantle the law, leaving birds and their habitats far more vulnerable to the negative impacts of development, and cut out the public from the review process.

The SPEED Act will leave threatened birds like the Greater Sage-Grouse, Golden Eagle, and Marbled Murrelet with fewer protections and the people who care about them with fewer options to voice their concerns.

Fortunately, there is still an opportunity to stop the Senate version of the SPEED Act.

Public land habitats are facing threats like never before. In the Pacific Northwest, an effort is underway to weaken or abolish the landmark Northwest Forest Plan. The policies and guidelines that make up the Northwest Forest Plan inform land use decisions on 24.5 million acres of federal land, home to vulnerable species such as the Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet, which both depend on large, intact tracts of old-growth forest.

The proposed rescinding of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule would remove protections from 58 million acres of critical forest habitat for birds in 37 states. Right now, some of the country’s most pristine landscapes and vitally important habitats are protected from the construction of new roads.

The Fix Our Forests Act, now being considered by Congress, would expedite unsustainable logging in sensitive habitats on federally managed lands, removing most environmental review, ignoring science-backed forest conservation practices, and limiting public engagement. As with the Northwest Forest Plan, endangered birds such as the Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet are particularly at risk from the Fix Our Forests Act.

Despite a challenging political environment, many of ABC’s conservation priorities will retain — or even see modest increases in — their funding in the 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

Migratory Bird Joint Ventures, collaborative regional initiatives that work to improve habitat for birds and people, are slated for additional funding under the appropriations bill.  Hawaiian Forest Bird Conservation programs would also get an infusion of funding to prevent the spread of deadly avian malaria, restore habitat, and ramp up conservation efforts for highly threatened endemic species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pesticide Consultation Division, which helps protect birds and other wildlife from toxic chemicals, also stands to gain needed resources from the spending bill.

Key programs that drive bird conservation in the U.S., such as Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation grants that benefit birds like the Bicknell’s Thrush across the annual cycle, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cooperative Research Units, and EPA grants to enforce and implement pesticide safety rules, all maintain their current funding in the bill that recently passed both the House and Senate. This bill is also free from the policy riders  — specific directives added to appropriations bills and other necessary legislation — that were added to previous versions. These riders would have removed specific species from the Endangered Species Act and reduced pesticide safety regulations and oversight. Now the bill awaits the president’s signature to become law.

In 2025, more than 25,000 people sent close to 200,000 messages using ABC’s Action Alerts to encourage legislators and other decision-makers to support policies that benefit birds and their habitats. Those messages made a difference: With your help, ABC was able to advocate for stronger federal funding that birds need, oppose attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, and make change at the state and local levels.