The Endangered Species Act Has Not Lived up to Its Mandate

The Endangered Species Act Has Not Lived Up To Its Mandate

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has recovered only 12 of 1304 species in its 32-year history (Pombo, 2005). This is less than 1% rate of species recovery, a dismal success level for a federal government program financed by taxpayers. Also, it has been shown that the Endangered Species Act has been abused by various environmental organizations, and the bill itself is vaguely written. In "Biodiversity Baloney: Some Popular Myths Undone," the Union of Concerned Scientists believes that the Endangered Species Act has been a success, but there is more evidence in the contrary. For these and several more reasons, the Endangered Species Act has not lived up to its mandate, and needs to be reformed.

President Richard Milhous Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act on December 28, 1973 (Pombo, 2005). However, since this act was signed into law, there has been a controversy, with environmentalists set against property-rights activists, in a ceaseless debate about the ESA's costs and benefits. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) states in "Biodiversity Baloney" (2005) that the rate of extinctions in the past 400 years has been more rapid than normal, and that habitat loss or alteration is the primary reason for species endangerment. The UCS also argues that there has not been enough money put into the ESA for it to be successful, which is completely true. By its nature, the successful restoration of endangered species is expensive. Therefore, the Endangered Species Act would probably accomplish more if there was more funding directed toward the ESA.

The ESA requires a large number of funds to clear up its backlog of pending listings, to handle the administrative work needed to complete the paperwork and carry out the fieldwork associated with each new listing. In 2003, the FWS estimated that it will take over $153 million dollars to process candidate species and received only $15 million for all listing activities. It has been shown that species that receive more money on recovery are more successful in increasing population. (Stokstad, 2005)

The Endangered Species Act requires that a list be kept of all endangered species, and in its history only 12 of 1304 have been so successful that they have been taken off the list. Currently, approximately 30% of species are stable, and about 9% are improving. (Pombo, 2005) According to Stokstad (2005), an additional 268 candidate species are proposed to be added to the list. On average, candidate species wait about 17 years to get on the list, and since 1973, 27 species have gone extinct while on the candidate list. In addition, nine species that were actually on the list have died out. In 2002, about 2% of species on the list had accomplished more than three-quarters of the goals spelled out in their recovery plans.

In some cases, the successes of the Endangered Species Act have been exaggerated. For example, the Bald Eagle is one of the more prideful successes of the ESA, but factors other than the ESA are the reasons for a more robust Bald Eagle population today. The signing of the Bald Eagle Act in 1940 made it illegal to hunt the eagle, the ban on the poison DDT in 1972 (Jacoby, 2001), which made the eggshells of the eagles very weak, and state and local conservation efforts all helped greatly to increase the eagle population. (Pombo, 2005)

Interestingly, 15% of species have been delisted after research revealed populations were more robust than previously thought (Stokstad, 2005). A 1997 report, "Conservation Under the ESA, A Promise Broken," written by the National Wilderness Institute, claims "...There is no case which required the ESA to bring the improvement of a species." Also, in at least

four of the claimed recovery cases there was "Little demonstrable change in the species' condition attributable to anything other than data error." (Pombo, 2005) As seen in Graph 1, this data error is the top reason for delisting. The other reasons for delisting are extinction, non-ESA related federal protection, state and private recovery efforts, and DDT recovery, as shown in Graph 1 (Burnett & Allen, 1998).

Unfortunately, there has been a history of radical environmental groups who have abused the Endangered Species Act to raise funds, block development projects and prohibit legal land uses. Richard Pombo (2005) asserts that these organizations have caused the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the executors of the ESA, to spend more time in the courtroom defense tables than in the field. This has caused the FWS to devote far too much money, time and manpower to battling lawsuits over species recovery. The entire ESA budget is at risk to be used for a never-ending process of litigation. As soon as the FWS makes a decision driven by a court-imposed deadline, it is being sued over the merits of that decision. Government biologists are forced to spend more time in offices and courtrooms than on fieldwork. Also, the flood of environmental litigation bankrupted the FWS fund for critical habitats in May of 2003. According to Stokstad (2005), in 2003, two-thirds of the FWS listing budget was spent on lawsuits and court orders.

The Endangered Species Act requires that the FWS designate critical habitat within a year of listing a species. However, the FWS rarely does because the action is redundant, and costs much time and paperwork. These missed deadlines have led to successful lawsuits by environmental groups. There needs to be some reform in the law to avoid a complete waste of money and resources. (Stokstad, 2005)

The Endangered Species Act is also poorly worded, and vague at parts. According to Pombo (2005), the ESA uses the "best scientific data available" when making decisions, but Congress failed to neither define "science," nor specifically outline whether or not some particular data would meet this standard. Also, "best" is a comparative word; the data need not be verified, reliable, or conclusive. Agencies that evaluate scientific data under the ESA say their goals are problematic due to two factors: the ESA's lack of definitional terms, and the fact that species data is, by nature, often imprecise and ambiguous. Other laws have avoided this problem by establishing a need for peer review, such as the Safe Water Drinking Act.

The ESA has also resulted in the creation of a rival relationship between government regulators and people who are the most critical to the actions of