After helping prevent extinctions for 50 years, the Endangered Species Act itself may be in peril -
“The Endangered Species Act has been very successful,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in an Associated Press interview. “And I believe very strongly that we’re in a better place for it.”
The act is “well-intentioned but entirely outdated … twisted and morphed by radical litigants into a political firefight rather than an important piece of conservation law,” said Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, who in July announced a group of GOP lawmakers would propose changes.
“The Endangered Species Act is our best tool to address biodiversity loss in the United States,” Senate Environment and Public Works chairman Tom Carper said during a May floor debate over whether the northern long-eared bat should keep its protection status granted in 2022. “Its population has dropped 90% in a very short period of time,” he said. “If that doesn’t make you go on the endangered species list, what’s going to?”It’s “nothing short of astounding” how attitudes toward the law have changed, largely because few realized at first how far it would reach, said Holly Doremus, a University of California, Berkeley law professor.
The act cleared Congress with what in hindsight appears stunning ease: unanimous Senate approval and a 390-12 House vote. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, signed it into law. An early battle involved the snail darter, a tiny Southeastern fish that delayed construction of a Tennessee dam on a river then considered its only remaining home.
The Trump administration ended blanket protection for animals newly deemed threatened. It let federal authorities consider economic costs of protecting species and disregard habitat impacts from climate change. One pending bill would prohibit additional listings expected to cause “significant” economic harm. Another would remove most gray wolves and grizzly bears - subjects of decades-old legal and political struggles - from the protected list and bar courts from returning them.
The act was supposed to function like a hospital emergency room, providing lifesaving but short-term treatment, Wood said. Instead, it resembles perpetual hospice care for too many species. Agency officials acknowledge struggling to keep up with listing proposals and strategies for restoring species. The work is complex; budgets are tight. Petitions and lawsuits abound. Congress provides millions to rescue popular animals such as Pacific salmon and steelhead trout while many species get a few thousand dollars annually.
The act empowers the government to identify “critical habitat” where economic development can be limited. Many early supporters believed public lands and waters - state and national parks and wildlife refuges - would meet the need, said Doremus, the California-Berkeley professor.
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