SACRAMENTO — California has filed suit against the Bush administration to block last-minute endangered species regulations that are intended to reduce input from federal scientists, Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Tuesday.

Brown said the president is trying to gut the Endangered Species Act before he leaves office next month.

“Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science,” Brown said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “This is the latest assault as Bush goes out the door. It’s intolerable.”

The state’s lawsuit was filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The Interior Department issued the revised rules earlier this month. They allow federal agencies to issue permits for mining, logging and similar activities without getting a review from federal wildlife biologists.

The changes also block agencies from using the Endangered Species Act to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on ecosystems when reviewing projects such as new roads or coal plants on federal land.

Interior Department spokeswoman Tina Kreisher declined to comment on the California lawsuit. She said the revised rules will continue to protect threatened and endangered species.

“The law says that all federal agencies will ensure that no take occurs of a listed species whatever it is they are doing,” she said.

Brown is asking the court to block the new rules, which could give the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama time to review them.