BILLINGS, Mont. — The U.S. Department of the Interior on Friday canceled a rule intended to protect plants and animals considered endangered, the latest step by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismantle key provisions of the landmark Endangered Species Act at the industry’s behest.

Instead of receiving automatic protections, endangered species will need individualized protection plans once they are added to the threatened species list. It’s a potentially lengthy process in which companies could apply for exemptions for oil and gas drilling, mining and other developments where those species live.

Opponents said it would make it harder to save wildlife that is awaiting federal protections and in danger of disappearing, such as monarch butterflies and alligator turtles.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that the Endangered Species Act had been used for too long “to stop almost every new project in the United States, increasing costs for families, weakening our competitiveness and undermining our national security.”

“Success should be measured by the recovery and delisting of species, not by adding more species to the list,” Burgum added.

A second change finalized Friday requires officials to look at economic impacts when deciding whether habitat is critical to the survival of a species. Critics say it gives corporations a chance to put their thumb on the scale to get officials to allow development in those areas.

“If you exempt certain industries that cause habitat destruction, in many cases you exempt the main threat to those species,” said Noah Greenwald of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

Officials made similar changes during Trump’s first term, but they were reversed under former Democratic President Joe Biden.

Rules granting what some consider “blanket protections” to threatened species were first adopted for wildlife in 1975 and for plants in 1977.

Two groups, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Property and Environment Research Center, sued the Biden administration in 2024 after officials reinstated the blanket shield rule. They argued that the rule unfairly imposed the same restrictions on landowners when a species’ status improves from more seriously endangered to threatened.

That eliminated incentives for landowners to participate in species recovery, said Jonathan Wood, vice president of the Montana-based research center.

Wood said the Trump administration’s approach allows officials to “better reward progress and encourage proactive conservation.”

No species have been added to the endangered or threatened lists during Trump’s second term. By comparison, more than 20 species were added during Trump’s first term and about 60 during Biden’s presidency.

Currently it is proposed to include about 30 species as threatened. In addition to monarchs and alligator turtles, California spotted owls and various snakes, fish, clams and insects are included.

Changes in government policies for endangered plants and wildlife have come faster and more widespread in Trump’s second term than in his first.

In March, the administration exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said environmentalists’ lawsuits threatened to hamper domestic energy supplies as the United States wages war against Iran.

Last week, Interior officials sharply narrowed the definition of what constitutes “harm” to a species. The change would allow the development of critical wildlife habitat, as long as the animals themselves are not immediately killed or injured.

This week, officials sharply reduced the amount of critical habitat in the U.S. Rocky Mountains designated for the Canada lynx, forest-dwelling bobcats that are threatened by climate change and other pressures.

Also this week, Burgum said on a visit to Montana that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would hand more grizzly bear management authority to states where bruins live. That has been a long-standing priority for the Republican governors of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

The Endangered Species Act is credited with bringing iconic animals such as the bald eagle and the American alligator back from the brink of extinction.

Burgum noted Friday that 97% of the species that have been granted protection still have it. This is a frustration for Republican lawmakers who say the species should be removed from endangered and threatened species lists more quickly once they have recovered.