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Focus: Endangered Species Act - Bitter Fights Lead to Rewrite of Law

Posted on: Saturday, 1 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

A brief history

From cranes to whales to darters

Congress passes its first law protecting endangered species in 1966 as the nation becomes aware of the near-extinction of the whooping crane.

The law authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to list endangered domestic fish and wildlife and allows the Fish & Wildlife Service to spend up to $15 million a year to buy habitat to protect species.

In 1969, the movement to save sperm whales pressures Congress to write a new law that protects foreign species and prohibits imports of products made from such species.

The Pentagon, which uses sperm-whale oil in submarines, protests, arguing that the species was not in any immediate danger of extinction. The Interior Secretary lists it anyway, but the fight convinces officials that a new, stronger law is needed.

Tennessee's role

Enhanced law 'stops' Tellico Dam

1973: With the support of the Nixon administration, Congress overwhelmingly rewrites Endangered Species Act.

Plants added: The new law distinguishes threatened from endangered species, protects plants and invertebrates, authorizes unlimited funds for species protection, and makes it illegal to kill, harm, or otherwise "take" a listed species. In effect, the law makes endangered species protection the highest priority of government.

1978: The Supreme Court rules that the law requires that construction of Tellico Dam near Knoxville be halted.

Not impressed: Arguments that $78 million had already been spent on the dam or that the endangered snail darter was only a tiny fish do not impress the court. The "plain intent" of the law, say six of the nine members, is to save all species "whatever the cost."

God Squad: Congress responds by creating a committee that could exempt selected species from protection. But the first meeting of the so-called God Squad ends with the panel siding with the Supreme Court.

1979: The Tennessee congressional delegation responds by exempting Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act in an appropriations bill, which narrowly passes. The Tennessee Valley Authority completes the dam, presumably extirpating the snail darter.

1980: More snail darters are found and the species turns out not to be in such danger after all.

Unintended results

Law's reach irks landowners

One of three known populations of the San Diego mint, proposed for protection in 1978, is in a planned subdivision that would be partly built with a Veterans Administration loan guarantee.

The VA tells the developer that if the mint is listed, the agency won't make the loan guarantee.

A few days before the plant is protected, the developer bulldozes the plants. The loan guarantee goes through.

Congress amends the law in 1982 to allow landowners to write habitat-conservation plans for listed species that allows the "taking" of endangered animals provided the species is protected elsewhere.

In 1995, the Supreme Court affirms, 6-3, that alteration of a listed species' habitat is considered a "taking" of that species and can be regulated by the Fish & Wildlife Service. The court does not rule on whether such regulation requires compensation.

Congress places a moratorium on further listings of species, denying whatever protection the act provides.

The next step is up to the Senate, where Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, R- R.I., has asked a Colorado-based arbitration group to bring together opposing sides and come up with a proposed compromise by February.

Sources: The Thoreau Institute (www.ti.org), Knight Ridder Tribune Information Services

Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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