Endangered Species Act Of 1973

Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they were reviewing proposed changes to the way the 34-year-old Endangered Species Act is enforced, a move that critics say would weaken the law in ways that a Republican majority in Congress was unable to do. A draft of suggested changes, which was leaked Tuesday, would reduce protection for wildlife habitat and transfer some authority over vulnerable species to states.

Ruling that the Bush administration "plainly violated" the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge overturned a regulation Thursday that streamlined approval of pesticides by eliminating reviews by wildlife officials responsible for protecting rare animals and plants. The judge restored pre-2004 standards requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to consult federal wildlife biologists before licensing pesticides. The ruling was a victory for nine environmental groups that sued the U.S.

Fred Purcell stabbed the sugary soil with the toe of his tasseled loafer and listened to the soundtrack of a boomtown. Construction workers lined up noisily outside a barbecue joint as concrete trucks rumbled by the Home Depot and new neighborhoods with names like Bella Vista and Rancho Valencia. Four Points was a crossroads 15 miles northwest of Austin when Purcell and his partners bought 216 acres here 22 years ago.

An effort by property rights advocates to attack the legal foundation of the Endangered Species Act was turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, marking the end of a curious but closely watched case involving tiny cave bugs and a plot of undeveloped Texas scrubland. The court let stand, without comment, a lower court's ruling that the federal government has the authority under the Constitution's commerce clause to protect rare animals even if they do not cross state borders.

The House of Representatives is expected to approve a sweeping overhaul of the Endangered Species Act on Thursday that would curtail protection of wildlife habitat and require the federal government to compensate developers and others whose land use is restricted by the act. The legislation has been put on a fast track by its chief sponsor, Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy), who has long argued that the 1973 law is unfair to property owners and ineffective at saving species.

The House of Representatives, in a major overhaul of the Endangered Species Act, voted Thursday to rescind existing protections on more than 150 million acres and to pay property owners whose land use is restricted because of an endangered species. An alternative proposal, which would have offered incentives to landowners to help protect species on their property, failed to pass by 10 votes.

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND -- Minutes after federal officials announced Thursday that the animal would be protected under the Endangered Species Act, a baby Channel Islands fox scampered across its pen, flopped onto a small hammock and dozed off. The much-anticipated announcement was no big deal for the grayish, housecat-sized fox, but it marked a major step for scientists, conservationists and park officials desperately trying to save a creature that is nearly extinct.

One was a blue butterfly found in only one meadow in the Angeles National Forest near Wrightwood. Another was a rare fish in a spring at the California-Nevada border. Both are among 114 species that have become extinct since the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, in most cases because of lengthy delays in gaining protection, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental group.

Western governors gathered here Friday to plan with the Bush administration and members of Congress how to change the Endangered Species Act, the 31-year-old law they say has imposed costly hardships on the energy industry, developers, loggers and property owners. Moreover, they contend, the act has failed in its core mission. Though it has saved a number of plant and animal species from extinction, it has helped restore only a few of them to healthy populations.

Suspects in the killings of some of the nation's most imperiled animals are escaping prosecution under the federal Endangered Species Act because of a Justice Department policy that some federal wildlife officials call a significant loophole in the law. The policy requires that prosecutors show that a suspect knew an animal's biological identity -- for instance, that the animal was a grizzly bear and not the more common black bear.