S E C T I O N 2 : T H E M A J O R A C T O R S I N E S A
P O L I T I C S
C O M P I L E D B Y P H I L I P R O T H R O C K

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Endangered Species Act Imperatives
Why Legislate Biodiversity Protection? Why have an Endangered Species Act?
Bodies Governing the ESA
The Role of the Fish and Wildlife Service
(FWS)
National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA)
Congressional oversight and appropriations committees
Politics

 The introduction to the Endangered Species Act of
1973 (Act), determines that endangered and threatened species of wildlife and plants “are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people” (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Under the
Endangered Species Act, 2009).

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Societal Services
Ecosystem Services

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The U.S. FWS
NMFS
The Courts-
Members of congress
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Oversight committee members
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Appropriations committee members

 The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to administer the Endangered Species Act.
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Under Section 7 the FWS has to verify that it along with all public and private entities are not infringing upon the ESA
Under Section 9 the FWS limits the amount of take that any given entity can do
Provides grants for conservation programs
Keeps information on listed species, candidate species, conservation plans, updates, educational information, etc.
Helps to ensure that any recovery plans follow the guidelines within the ESA
Work with Indian tribes to ensure that they follow the law like everyone else
Offer habitat conservation plans (agreements between the FWS and land owners about how to protect threatened and endangered species)

 The FWS is offering grants for farmers
Figure adapted from: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/grants/index.html

 Cooperative Endangered Species Fund annually provides approximately:
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$10 million through the Habitat Conservation Planning
Assistance Grants Program
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$41 million through the Habitat Conservation Plan Land
Acquisition Grants Program
$15 through the Recovery Land Acquisition Grants Program

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The FWS administers the ESA under Section 6 of the text
The FWS coordinates with federal agencies under
Section 7
The FWS is continually underfunded, undermanned, and underrepresented in the power structure surrounding the
ESA (Spray and McGlothlin, 2003, 138-139)
The Department of the Interior's Hugh Vickery says, "It's part of the whole history of the [ESA]. The provisions aren't working. They're just a litigation magnet."

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Manages marine and anadromous species (species that live their adult lives in the ocean)
Section 4
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Listing of species
Critical habitat
Recovering species
Cooperation with States- Section 6
Interagency Consultations- Section 7
International Cooperation
Enforcement of the ESA- Section 9
Permits and Habitat Conservation Plans- Section 10

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Endangered Species Committee composed of five members including:
(A) The Secretary of Agriculture.
(B) The Secretary of the Army.
(C) The Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.
(D) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency.
(E) The Secretary of the Interior.
(F) The Administrator of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
(G) A president-appointee

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More money is given to listed species with land conflicts and for charismatic megafauna
Federal agencies sometimes provide matching grants for species recovery plans
U.S. FWS provide funding for grants for recovery plans

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Can block amendments, biodiversity legislation, and can block the U.S. FWS from complying with specific provisions within the ESA
Study finds partisan influences committee decisions on threatened and endangered species designation
For the Endangered Species Act this tends to be the
House Resources Committee and the Senate and
Environmental Works Committee

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Environmental Lobby Groups including: Center for
Biological Diversity (CBD), The Defenders of
Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy
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Lobby to congress
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Develop Reports on conservation and individual threatened species
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Create Congress advertisements like the one on the right
Developers, landowners http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/ads_and_ psas/stop_the_bush_administration_from_und ermining_the_esa_ads.php

 Political Maneuvers:
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Department Setting a time limit for the FWS permitting
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Union for Conserned Science
ESA is not as bad as it seems there needs to be more time to for species to recover- there has only been 30 years for them to recover
Reform bills are often used to weaken the ESA rather than to strengthen the science (which is just a pretext to change the bill)
There are modest successes which will take time for the species to fully recover
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Representative Pombo from
California
“only 10 of these 1,304 species have been recovered in the act's history.”
“Numerous qualified studies assert that none of the species listed by the FWS to have been
“recovered” in the United States may reasonably be claimed to have recovered as a result of the
ESA. The fact is that the few recovery success stories are not even attributable to regulatory protections under the ESA but to unrelated factors such as bans on
DDT and other organochlorides.

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Species-based conservation-
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Can protect ecosystem services and ecosystem functioning-
Ecosystem approach-
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Tend to be more cost effective
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Tend to be less effective at preserving species due to poor ecological understanding
Species protected for their ecosystem roles-
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Protect species = protect the ecosystem = $ =  society
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Fail to protect species = ecosystem collapse = $ =  society

 http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.
php?id=cqresrre2005060300&PHPSESSID=22noib k8j9v8cafg5e47ppgis7

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Ed. Scott, Michael J., Goble, Dale D., and Frank W.
Davis. The Endangered Species Act at Thirty:
Renewing the Conservation Promise. v.I Island
Press, Washington: 2006.
Albrecht, Virginia S. and Christman, James N., 1999.
The Endangered Species Act. Hunton & Williams
LLP. Accessed Online May 2, 2010: http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241467.html

 Albrecht, Virginia S. and Christman, James N., 1999. The Endangered Species Act. Hunton & Williams
LLP. Accessed Online May 2, 2010: http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241467.html
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Clayton, Mark, 2007. Politics undercut species act, suits say. Christian Science Monitor. Accessed
Online May 7, 2010.
Cooper, Mary H. 2005. Endangered Species Act: Is the landmark law in need of change? Available at: http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2005060300&PHPSESSID=
22noibk8j9v8cafg5e47ppgis7
Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute. 1992. Robertson v. Seattle Audubon
Society'y (90-1596), 503 U.S. 429. Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-
1596.ZO.html
Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute. 1999. Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapt.
Comms. for Ore. (94-859), 515 U.S. 687. Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-
859.ZO.html
Czech, Brian, and Krausman, Paul R. The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and
Public Policy. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 2001.

 Ed. Scott, Michael J., Goble, Dale D., and Frank W. Davis. The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Conserving
Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes. v.II Island Press, Washington: 2006.
Ed. Scott, Michael J., Goble, Dale D., and Frank W. Davis. The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Renewing the
Conservation Promise. v.I Island Press, Washington: 2006.
Greenwald, Noah D. 2009. Effects on Species’ Conservation of Reinterpreting the Phrase “Significant Portion of its
Range” in the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Conservation Biology , 23 (6): 1374-1377. Available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122666404/PDFSTART
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Justia US Court of Appeals, Cases and Opinions. 2005. Spirit of the Sage Council, et al., Appellees v. Gale A. Norton,
Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, et al., Appellees coalition for Habitat Conservation, et al., Intervenors.
Available at: http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/411/225/496994/
Justia US Supreme Court Center.1978. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTH. V. HILL, 437 U. S. 153. Available at: http://supreme.justia.com/us/437/153/
Justia US Supreme Court Center.1989. ROBERTSON V. METHOW VALLEY CITIZENS, 490 U. S. 332. Available at: http://supreme.justia.com/us/490/332/case.html
National Association of Homebuilders logo. Available at: http://www.nahb.org/default.aspx
National Defenders of Wildlife, 2010. Endangered Species Act. Accessed Online May 4th, 2010: http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/policy_and_legislation/endangered_species_act/index.php
National Marine Fisheries http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/esa/

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National Marine Fisheries Service logo. Available at: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/
NOAA, 2010. Interagency Consultation (ESA Section 7). Available Online: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/consultation/
OpenJurist. 2000. 199 F3d 1224 Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation v. Bruce Babbitt,
Secretary of Department of Interior. Available at: http://openjurist.org/199/f3d/1224/wyoming-farm-bureau-federation-v-bruce-babbittsecretary-of-department-of-interior
OpenJurist.2001. 245 F3d 434 Sierra Club v. US Fish and Wildlife Service. Available at: http://openjurist.org/245/f3d/434/sierra-club-v-us-fish-and-wildlife-service
Petersen, Shannon. 2002. Acting for Endangered Species: The Statutory Ark. University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas.
Picture of Bruce Babbitt. Available at: http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/66/Bruce_babbitt.jpg
Picture of dam on Little Tennessee River. Available at: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7834

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Picture of Forest in Pacific Northwest. Available at: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/156030main_Conifers_JPG.jpg
Picture of Gulf Sturgeon in water. Available at: http://www.gator-woman.com/Gulf_Sturgeon.jpg
Picture of Mule Deer Herd. Available at: http://www.forestryimages.org/images/3072x2048/1374601.jpg
Picture of Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolves. Available at: http://www.treehugger.com/Northern-Rocky-Mountain-Gray-Wolves.jpg
Picture of Okanango National Forest. Available at: http://www.ccawenatchee.org/library/Okanogan%20National%20Forest.jpg
Picture of Palila bird. Available at : http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/156030main_Conifers_JPG.jpg
Picture of red cockaded woodpecker. Available at: http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/Extension/florida_forestry_information/images/rcw3.gif
Picture of snail darter. Available at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/Snail_darter_FWS_1.jpg
Picture of Spotted Owl. Available at: http://staff.washington.edu/norheim/oldgrowth/spotted-owl.jpg
Picture of sturgeon being held up in the air. Availble at: http://www.fws.gov/southeast/drought/images/catch-of-the-day.jpg
Picture of Yellowstone National Park. Available at: http://grandcanyon.free.fr/images/cascade/original/Colors,%20Lower%20Falls,%20Yellowstone%20National%20Park.jpg
Spirit of the Sage council logo. Available at: http://www.sagecouncil.com/
Spray, Aaron L. and McGlothlin, Karen L. Loss of Biodiversity Lanham, Maryland. The Rowman & LittleFields Publisher, 2003.
The Oyez Project. 1992. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555
Available at: ( http://oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1991/1991_90_1424 )
The Oyez Project. 1995. Babbitt, Secretary Of Interior v. Sweet Home Chapter Of Communities For A Great Oregon , 515 U.S. 687. Available at: http://oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1994/1994_94_859
The Oyez Project. 2007. National Association of Home Builders, et al. v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. ___. Available at: http://oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_06_340
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endangered Species Program, 2009. Consultations with Federal Agencies: Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. Online Accessed: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/factsheets/consultations.pdf.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service logo. Available at: http://www.fws.gov/
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2008. A History of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Available at: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/factsheets/history_ESA.pdf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2010. Endangered Species Act of 1973: As amended through the 108th Congress. Available at: http://www.fws.gov/Endangered/pdfs/esaall.pdf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Secretary Salazar Announces Nearly $66 Million in Grants to Conserve Habitat of Threatened and Endangered Species. Online Accessed 26 April 2010. News Release 12 April
2010.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Endangered Species Act at 35. Online Accessed 4 April 2010. Last Updated 12 June 2009. Available at: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa35/ESA35Timeline.html
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A History of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Online Accessed 4 April 2010. Publication April 2008. Available at: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/factsheets/history_ESA.pdf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Endangered Species Act of 1973: as Amended by the 108th Congress. SEC. 7. FEDERAL AGENCY ACTIONS AND CONSULTATIONS, Pages 17-18. Accessed Online http://www.fws.gov/Endangered/pdfs/esaall.pdf
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2008. "Permits for Native Species Under the Endangered Species Act"