The Marine Mammal Protection Act is under attack.

For more than 50 years, this landmark conservation law has protected the whales, dolphins, manatees, and other mammals that contribute to the health and prosperity of our marine ecosystems. It’s helped endangered species bounce back and recover to healthy population numbers. And it’s so effective that not a single marine mammal species has gone extinct since it was enacted.

But a new proposal on the table could change all of that.

In late July, an Alaska House Republican proposed a complete overhaul of the MMPA at a subcommittee legislative hearing. Under the guise of streamlining permitting and simplifying processes for regulatory agencies, his draft bill proposes the following:

• Shifting the law’s focus to “continued survival,” rather than long-term prosperity. The MMPA was established with a strong vision: to sustain healthy populations of marine mammal species well into the future. Shifting the law’s focus to survival alone—especially given climate change’s existential threat to species worldwide—is sure to lead to more marine mammals on the endangered species list.

• Redefining harm. The current version of the MMPA prohibits activities that have the potential to injure or disturb marine mammals, such as seismic testing and offshore oil drilling. Under the proposed changes, only activities that directly kill or physically harm marine mammals would be prevented, making it much harder to mitigate destructive industry activities.

• Scaling back efforts to mitigate deaths in commercial fisheries. Historically, regulatory agencies have worked alongside fishermen and key stakeholders to limit the accidental entanglement of marine mammals in fishing gear. This is known as the take reduction planning process. The proposed amendments would undermine these plans by (1) getting rid of the MMPA’s near-zero mortality goal, and (2) making it incredibly difficult for agencies to establish limits on the number of marine mammals killed by human activity each year.

All in all, these changes would compromise our most effective tools for mitigating marine mammal loss and give extractive industries carte blanche to expand their operations. And for an already critically endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale, these proposed changes are practically a death sentence.

So what can we do?

Luckily, the draft bill is just that—a draft. And that means we have an opportunity to make our voices heard, drum up support, and do everything in our power to prevent these changes from going into effect.

Taking a stand against these rollbacks isn’t just about our love of charismatic megafauna or our desire to see marine ecosystems thrive for generations to come. It’s about challenging this administration’s pattern of senseless destruction—of propping up extractive industries at the expense of policies that are actively doing good.

These are critical protections we can’t afford to lose. Join us as we fight for the continued conservation of our most beloved species!