It’s no secret that the half-century-old Endangered Species Act (ESA) has become one of anti-farm activists’ favorite tools to litigate and regulate farms out of business.
What most people don’t know is that while ending farms and bringing in untold millions for the environmental litigation industry, the landmark law has largely failed to save the endangered species it claims to protect.
A new effort in Congress intends to reform the ESA, to modernize the measure and re-focus it on actually restoring endangered species rather than enabling costly, farm-crushing litigation, said Dan Keppen, Executive Director of the Family Farm Alliance.
Only 3% of the species listed for protection under the ESA have been recovered, Keppen said, calling out the over 50-year-old law’s abysmal track record.
But while the law has failed to substantially restore endangered species, it has been wildly successful in enriching countless radical environmental lawyers and the activist groups they represent.
“It’s a whole group of litigious environmental groups that make their living off of these lawsuits,” said Keppen, “and then oftentimes they will settle, behind closed doors, and get their attorneys’ fees paid by the federal government.”
Not only is it common for such lawyers to have their exorbitant fees paid by taxpayers, but in many cases, the high-dollar settlement payouts are channeled through third-party foundations, which often distribute grants to the very activist groups that filed the lawsuits.
It’s no surprise that these groups then fund further lawsuits, and the cycle of bilking taxpayers, enriching activists and shuttering farms continues–with little, if any, benefit to the environment. It’s also no surprise who speaks out against any kind of reform that might stand in the way of this scheme.
“The loudest critics for any sort of a change to the Endangered Species Act are typically the groups that are involved with these sue-and-settle types of agendas,” Keppen said. “It’s really been sort of a cottage industry for some of these groups. It’s been tremendously difficult to find out how much they’re getting paid for, as well.”
“The Endangered Species Act has consistently failed to achieve its intended goals and has been warped by decades of radical environmental litigation into a weapon instead of a tool,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, the chair of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources, in a press release.
Westerman’s new reform effort, called the Endangered Species Act Amendments of 2025 (H.R. 1897), recently received a hearing in the committee.
“[The measure] makes critical reforms to the ESA by establishing clear statutory definitions, focusing on species recovery and streamlining the ESA permitting process,” according to a recent issue alert from the Family Farm Alliance.
“The legislation also provides incentives for the recovery of listed species, promotes accountability for agency actions, and creates a backstop against frivolous litigation,” the alert read.
“It’s become sort of like this holy grail that people don’t even want to touch in Congress, but this law is over 50 years old and it hasn’t seen any substantial modernization,” Keppen said.
“This just comes down to transparency,” he said, “and just moving towards more of a common sense approach to implement the law, to try to get away from this litigation.”
Dillon Honcoop is communications director of Save Family Farming, an organization that advocates for family farmers in Washington state. The organization educates the public about family farming, and works to protect the state’s family farming community.
