Posted by Jonathan Adler: A Strange Standard for Success: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_01-2009_03_07.shtml#1236182374
In announcing his reversal of the Bush Administration's Section 7 consultation rule under the Endangered Species Act, [1]President Obama declared: "For more than three decades, the Endangered Species Act has successfully protected our nation's most threatened wildlife, and we should be looking for ways to improve it, not weaken it." This is a strange thing to say, as the ESA has completely failed to recover threatened and endangered species. As I have noted [2]here and [3]elsewhere (see also [4]here and [5]here), the ESA has an abysmal record at recovering species. Well [6]over 1,800 species are listed as threatened and endangered under the ESA. As of this morning, when I checked on [7]the FWS website, [8]a total of 46 species have been "delisted" -- that is have been removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. Of these, 28 were delisted because of an initial data error in the listing (FWS miscounted or misidentified a species) or due to extinction. (17 and 9 respectively.) Of the remaining species, many of these species' recovery have absolutely nothing to do with the Endangered Species Act. Several bird species, for example, were almost certainly helped by the de facto DDT ban, but this was done in 1972, a year before the ESA was enacted. Several other species, such as some species of Australian kangaroos and birds from Palau, are indeed doing better, but the ESA had no role with these species either. In the few instances in which the ESA might have helped, such as with the [9]Aleutian Canada goose, the key actions had nothing to do with the Act's primary regulatory components. (The goose, for instance, was largely helped by predator control, not controls on private land.) In sum, it is not clear that there is a single species -- not one of the 1,000-plus -- that has been recovered due to the primary regulatory provisions of the Act. If this is President Obama's idea of "success," I don't want to know what constitutes a failure. References 1. http://www.sacbee.com/341/story/1669824.html?mi_rss=National%20Political%20News 2. http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1187366183.shtml 3. http://www.rff.org/Publications/WPC/Pages/08_08_04_Adler_Endangered_Species.aspx 4. http://volokh.com/2003_12_28_volokh_archive.html#107258452963434587 5. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107283504618484600,00.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries 6. http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/TESSBoxscore 7. http://www.fws.gov/endangered/recovery/index.html 8. http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/DelistingReport.do 9. http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/special/esa/canada_goose/ac_goose.php _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
