Endangered Species Act Of 1973

Rejecting a challenge by wildlife experts, the Supreme Court upheld a Bush Administration policy Friday that keeps the Endangered Species Act from being applied to U.S.-funded projects overseas. The 7-2 decision is a victory for the President and his attorneys, but it came at an inopportune time: the day Bush arrived at the Earth Summit in Brazil to fend off criticism of his environmental record. The ruling dealt environmentalists a far-reaching defeat on two counts.

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.

William H. Rehnquist came to the Supreme Court in 1972 after having served as a Justice Department lawyer who vigorously defended the Richard M. Nixon Administration in battles with Congress. Antonin Scalia had the same job defending the executive branch in the Gerald R. Ford Administration. Byron R. White came to the court after serving as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department of the John F. Kennedy Administration.

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.

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.

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.

Confronted with criticism from some scientists and environmental groups, the Clinton administration is promising to improve the program that tries to strike a compromise between economic growth and the Endangered Species Act. That program to date has produced more than 240 conservation plans nationwide, from Orange County's coastal hills to the Headwaters redwood forests in Northern California.

One of the most dramatic successes of the Endangered Species Act in the last quarter-century is unfolding in Yellowstone National Park, but scientific controversy and environmental politics are clouding the achievement. In 1982, the data available to biologists indicated that grizzly bears would be extinct in the park by 2000. The bear received protection under the Endangered Species Act, and now bear populations in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem appear to be healthy and growing.

In its most important environmental decision in nearly two decades, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the sweeping reach of the Endangered Species Act, ruling that federal officials can block development on private land in order to protect the habitat of animals and plants on the verge of extinction.

The nation's largest group of professional foresters will propose changes in the Endangered Species Act today to help protect private property owners. The 18,000-member organization will also propose an independent review of the scientific reasoning behind decisions to list species as threatened or endangered. But leaders of the Society of American Foresters said the initial decision on whether to protect a species should continue to be based on biological evidence rather than economic pain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Two recent court decisions ordering the federal government to set aside habitat for endangered animals in Orange County signal a new conflict nationwide between Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and environmentalists. In court, before Congress and in policy statements, Babbitt has made it clear that he wants to get rid of the so-called critical habitat law, a key part of the Endangered Species Act.

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.

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.

A federal judge struck down a key provision of the Endangered Species Act, ruling that an incentive for landowners to participate in conservation planning was adopted without adequate public consultation and must be reconsidered. Emmet Sullivan, U.S. District judge for the District of Columbia, struck down the "no surprises" rule that helped secure protection of nearly 40 million acres of wildlife habitat around the country under agreements known as habitat conservation plans.