The LIST Act of 2025 (H.R. 106) would rewrite aspects of the Endangered Species Act to push for faster and more precise delisting decisions, and to tighten oversight of listings that turn out to be erroneous. Key features include a new obligation for the Interior Department to initiate delisting when a species’ recovery goals are met (or when evidence shows recovery without recovery goals having been established), and a mechanism to delist if information demonstrates that a listing was based on faulty data. The bill also introduces a rapid 90-day review for listings that may have been erroneous, with certain findings exempt from judicial review. In addition, it expands the considerations used during five-year status reviews to determine whether a species remains listed, including recovery criteria, listing-factor criteria, and potential error findings. Overall, the bill aims to reduce “imprecision” in listing and delisting but raises questions about safeguards and due process.
Key Points
- 1New delisting triggers and procedures
- 2- The Secretary must initiate delisting if a species’ recovery plan goals are met, or if recovery goals are not established but the Secretary determines the species has recovered sufficiently to no longer need protection.
- 3- If the Department has substantial information showing the species is recovered, the Secretary must delist, and the delisting notice would be a straightforward removal notice.
- 4Erroneous or wrongful listings subject to rapid review
- 5- When information indicating that a listing was based on flawed data is received, the Secretary must, within 90 days, assess whether the listing was unlikely to have occurred without that information.
- 6- Information qualifying are inaccuracies, fraud, or misrepresentation in scientific or commercial data available to or produced by the Department.
- 7- Positive findings (i.e., findings that an erroneous listing occurred) would remove the species and are not subject to judicial review; negative findings (i.e., finding no erroneous listing) are subject to judicial review.
- 8Effects of rapid delisting
- 9- If a species is delisted under the erroneous-listing provisions, the notice published under the usual listing-determination framework would consist only of the removal notice.
- 10Penalty for fraudulent petitions
- 11- If the Secretary finds that a petition submitting the misleading information was knowingly false, the petitioning party cannot be treated as an “interested person” for the next 10 years for purposes of filing future petitions.
- 12Expanded criteria during five-year reviews
- 13- During the five-year review, determinations must consider one of several options: (A) recovery-plan-based criteria; (B) if objective recovery criteria are not established, the standard listing/delisting factors; (C) potential error in the prior listing; or (D) a determination that the species is no longer endangered/threatened based on the listing factors.