Endangered Species Act

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The Endangered Species Act (7 U.S.C. 136; 16 U.S.C. 460 et seq. (1973)) of 1973 or ESA was the most wide-ranging of dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s in an attempt to halt or reverse the degradation of the environment. The act is designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction due to "the consequences of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." Congress passed its first legislation to protect endangered vertebrates in 1966 and expanded the law again in 1969. In 1973 Congress expanded both the scope and power of species protection by creating the Endangered Species Act. The stated purpose of the Act is not only to protect species, but also "the ecosystems upon which they depend." At the species level, the Act protects all plants and animals, while previously laws protected only vertebrates. It forbids federal agencies from authorizing, funding or carrying out actions which may jeopardize endangered species. It forbids any government agency, corporation, or citizen from taking (i.e. harming or killing) endangered animals without a permit. At the ecosystem level, the Act requires that endangered species be granted "critical habitats" which encompass all areas necessary for their recovery. Federal agencies are forbidden from authorizing, funding, or carrying out any action which "destroys or adversely modifies" a critical habitat area.

ESA is administered by two federal agencies, the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries (formerly the National Marine Fisheries Service). NOAA Fisheries handles marine species, and the FWS has responsibility over freshwater fishes and all other species. The FWS has set up an Endangered Species Program that evolves habitat conservation plans intended to coordinate the requirements of species and corporate and private owners of essential habitat.

The Act was passed in the wake of a 1973 conference in Washington DC that led to the signing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricted international commerce in plant and animal species believed to be actually or potentially harmed by trade.

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Listing

A species can be listed via two mechanisms. The first is for the FWS or NMFS to take the initiative and directly list the species. The second way is via individual or organizational petition. There are two categories on the list, endangered and threatened. Endangered species are closer to extinction than threatened species. A third status is that of "candidate species". Under this status, the FWS has concluded that listing is warranted but immediate listing is precluded due to other priorities (limited time, perhaps political pressure to delay listing).

It is illegal to harm (harm includes the adverse modification of a species habitat), buy, sell or trade listed species. The penalties for violating the Endangered Species Act can be as serious as a $50,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

Further, the FWS develops a plan to help the listed species recover, and it designates "critical habitats." The ESA defines Endangered Species Act, critical habitat as "the specific areas within the geographic area occupied by a species on which are found those physical and biological features essential to the conservation of the species, and that may require special management considerations or protection; and specific areas outside the geographic area occupied by a species at the time it is listed, upon determination that suchareas are essential for the conservation of the species."

The Environmental Protection Agency bases decisions to register a pesticide in part on the risk of adverse effects on endangered species as well as its environmental fate, its effect in the ecosystem.

There is debate on the effectiveness of the ESA. Defenders of the ESA argue that it has been enormously successful at preventing extinctions. They argue that between 98-99% of species protected by the law have been preserved from extinction and that the United States would have experienced an order of magnitude more extinctions but for the protective provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

Critics of the ESA argue that the Act has not accomplished its stated goal--the recovery of endangered species. Since 1973, only 33 species have been delisted, seven because they went extinct and 12 more because they should not have been listed in the first place. Six more may be cases of data error, which is certainly the case with the gray whale and American alligator. The brown pelican’s and Arctic peregrine falcon’s recoveries have far more to do with the ban on the insecticide DDT than with the Endangered Species Act.

The Act contains a citizen suit clause. The clause allows citizens to sue the government to enforce the law.

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Criticisms

Penn and Teller have criticized the Act in their television show Bullshit!. They believe that it has detrimental effects on property owners and the United States economy, especially the logging industry. They also say that very few species have been saved by EPA protection.

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External links

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