A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to suspend a commercial logging project in southern Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest, finding the agency’s approval of the project under President Joe Biden violated the Endangered Species Act. Despite the agency’s own preliminary assessment showing an endangered bat species lived in the roughly 70-acre area targeted for the tree thinning project, the Forest Service did not wait for an official opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to approve the project. Environmental groups sued, but by the time the judge issued a temporary restraining order halting the project last summer, a logging company had already cut down trees in 40 of the 67 acres. Separately, the Trump administration this summer has moved to change two federal rules, including one weakening the Endangered Species Act, making it easier to approve projects like logging, mining, oil and gas drilling and other development in federal lands and forests.