Rebuilding the Ark , livre ebook

AEI Press - Jonathan H. Adler

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

136 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) may be the most powerful environmental law in the United States. Enacted in 1973, the ESA prohibits any actions that may cause harm to endangered plants and animals or the ecosystems upon which they depend. But although more than 1,200 species are protected under the Act, most remain in peril. The ESA may have saved some species from the brink of extinction, but there is little evidence it is working as intended to recover endangered and threatened species. In some cases, the Act's extensive regulatory requirements may actually discourage conservation efforts. In Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform, Jonathan H. Adler leads a group of environmental law experts in evaluating the ESA's successes and failures and exploring multiple avenues for reform. The authors examine methods for incentivizing conservation on private land and water, for revising and standardizing the ESA's regulatory framework, and for increasing transparency, accountability.

Sujets

Political Science

Histoire

Theory

History

Informations

Publié par	AEI Press
Date de parution	16 juin 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780844743936
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,3500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Distributed by arrangement with the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706. To order, call toll free 1-800-462-6420 or 1-717-794-3800. For all other inquiries, please contact AEI Press, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, or call 1-800-862-5801.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rebuilding the ark: new perspectives on Endangered Species Act reform Jonathan H. Adler, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8447-4391-2 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-8447-4391-7 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8447-4393-6 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 0-8447-4393-3 (ebook)
1. Endangered species—Law and legislation—United States—Congresses.
2. United States. Endangered Species Act of 1973—Congresses. I. Adler, Jonathan H.
KF5640.A75R43 2011
346.73O4’69522—dc22
© 2011 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI.
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Projects of this magnitude are rarely sole endeavors, and this book is no exception. Numerous individuals, not least the contributing authors, helped make this possible. Special thanks are owed to Henry Olsen and the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute for suggesting and supporting this project from its inception. Tremendous thanks are also due to Emily Batman for her attention to detail and tireless efforts to keep things on track for the book and September 2009 conference at which the chapters were first presented. Thanks also to the commentators and discussants at the conference who provided useful feedback to the paper authors, including Michael Bogert, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Ken Green, Steven Hayward, Rafe Petersen, Lynn Scarlett, David Schoenbrod, William Snape, and David Sunding. In addition, I would like to thank Robert Rawson, Interim Dean at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, for his support of my work on this and other projects, and my wife Christina, for her love and patience. Finally, a word to my daughters and the endless inspiration they provide. Whether we learn to protect environmental values in a more effective and equitable fashion matters more for them than for me; they will live with the result of our efforts. It is my hope that this book, in some small way, will leave them a better world than otherwise would have been.
Jonathan H. Adler, December 2010
Introduction: Rebuilding the Ark
Jonathan H. Adler
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted in 1973 to conserve animal and plant species threatened with extinction and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Few quarrel with this goal, yet many quarrel with the Act. The ESA is among the most criticized and controversial of all environmental laws: landowners and private businesses have long decried the Act’s regulatory burdens, while conservationists increasingly question the Act’s environmental effectiveness.
Well over 1,200 species have been listed as needing the Act’s protection, but few have been restored to healthy status. The law appears to have prevented some species from falling over the brink into extinction. Yet there is little evidence it has restored many species populations to health. Moreover, the Act may have done more harm than good for some species because it has discouraged conservation and antagonized those upon whom species’ survival depends.
The ESA’s failures have not been due to a lack of enforceable provisions. The Act is arguably the most powerful environmental law in the U.S. Code. One environmental activist likened the law to a pit bull because it is “short, compact, and has a hell of a set of teeth.” 1 The law prohibits actions that may harm species or their habitat, and it imposes lengthy and extensive planning and consultation requirements on federal agencies. In some cases, the regulatory requirements of the Act are so severe as to discourage species conservation on private land and may even encourage landowners to harm endangered species or destroy valuable species habitat. Today the Act is the source of extensive litigation in federal courts as environmental activists, regulated interests, and government agencies spar over its implementation, including its application to greenhouse gas emissions and other regulatory programs.
The Supreme Court, in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, declared that the ESA sought to prevent species extinction “whatever the cost,” and costs rarely come into play under the Act. Fittingly, then, there is no comprehensive study of the ESA’s economic costs or its benefits. 2 There is not even a full accounting of how much the federal and state governments spend to implement, enforce, and comply with the Act. 3 Existing government reports are incomplete, and there has been no meaningful effort to account for the costs the ESA imposes on the private sector.
Whatever the total costs of the ESA, they are far greater than has been accounted for in government reports. But this is only part of the story. Perhaps ironically, it appears the ESA is “underfunded,” in that appropriations for species-related activities are insufficient to meet the needs of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and other conservation agencies (let alone individual species’ needs). 4 A further problem is that federal spending is not driven by neutral scientific assessment of what species are in greatest need or where government support will be most helpful. 5 As New York University law professor Katrina Wyman observes, “limited amounts of public funding available for species recovery are allocated primarily based on political and bureaucratic considerations” instead of species-related or ecological factors. 6 FWS recovery expenditures, for instance, are “poorly correlated” with species priority rankings. 7 Political and institutional incentives as well as outside litigation combine to distort species funding priorities. 8 Responding to litigation can be particularly expensive and consumes large portions of available funds. 9
Despite the ESA’s failings, Congress has not revised the law in over twenty-five years. Legislative proposals have succumbed to partisan infighting and interest group pressure. Administrative reforms advanced by the Clinton and Bush Administrations may have done some good, but they are insufficient. Unless Congress acts to reform the ESA, the Act is unlikely to preserve many more species and thus fulfill its statutory mandate.
This volume seeks to contribute to the cause of ESA reform by expanding the debate over the Act’s failings and possible avenues for reform. The contributors to this volume present a range of reform proposals from a wide range of perspectives. Not every contributor embraces the ideas put forward by the others, but all share a genuine interest in making species conservation more effective.
In chapter 1, I survey the Act’s conservation record with a particular focus on private land. The vast majority of endangered and threatened species dwell on private land, and private land conservation is necessary for their survival. Yet there is evidence the ESA’s primary regulatory provisions discourage private land conservation and are in particular need of reform.
Section 10 of the ESA authorizes the Fish and Wildlife Service to permit “incidental takes” of listed species in conjunction with approved habitat conservation plans (HCPs). Numerous HCPs are approved, but we know little about how they are working. To address these shortcomings, in chapter 2, David A. Dana proposes a series of reforms to the HCP process to enhance transparency, accountability, public participation, and, most of all, conservation.
There is a growing consensus that economic incentives could encourage greater conservation on private land but disagreement about what form such incentives should take. In chapter 3, R. Neal Wilkins summarizes recent incentive efforts and assesses the promise of incentive systems, including conservation banks and recovery crediting. Wilkins argues that the latter, in particular, are a promising tool for encouraging greater habitat protection on private land.
Instead of separating property rights and government permissions, Jamison E. Colburn in chapter 4 calls for greater integration of the two, treating regulatory permissions more like property to enhance assessment and certainty. Although nature is infinitely variable, a more standardized regulatory framework could enhance nature’s conservation.
The tax code provides a modest incentive for conservation by allowing income tax deductions for the donation of conservation easements. In chapter 5, Jonathan Remy Nash suggests the conservation value of this policy could be increased if the value of the deduction were calibrated to the ecological value of the easement.
Species conservation affects owners of water no less than owners of land. Species-driven conflicts over water use and disposition would appear to place species conservation and water rights at odds. In chapter 6, James L. Huffman suggests this conclusion is misplaced, and that greater protection for property rights in water could improve regulatory incentives and actually enhance species conservation efforts.
Some ESA reform proponents argue that better science will produce better regulatory decisions under the ESA. Drawing on his experience in both state and federal regulatory agencies, Brian F. Mannix suggests in chapter 7 that the problem is less inad