Posts from May 2015

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected (pdf) the National Association of Home Builders’ and three other associations’ (collectively, NAHB) challenge to separate settlements between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and two environmental organizations. The settlements direct the Service to make listing decisions on 251 species by specified dates.  The Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s decision that NAHB lacked standing to raise its challenge.

As we previously reported, the district court ...

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While a number of Endangered Species Act (ESA) reform bills continue to wind their way through Congress (see our May 6, 2015 post), yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced their own plan to "increase regulatory predictability, increase stakeholder engagement, and improve science and transparency" when acting on petitions to list, uplist, downlist, or delist a species, as well as petitions to revise critical habitat designations.  Rather than revising the ESA itself, as some in Congress ...

Posted in Conservation

This Friday, May 15th, marks the 10th anniversary of Endangered Species Day. Events are scheduled throughout the country to recognize conservation efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats, which have occurred primarily as a result of the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973. For example, zoo staff at the Naples Zoo in Florida will be working to educate guests about the endangered animals living at the zoo, including Malayan tigers, cheetahs, and leopards.

Conservation groups are taking the opportunity to raise funds for endangered species conservation. The ...

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On May 1, 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (collectively, the wildlife agencies) issued a final rule amending the regulations governing consultation under section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in order to codify the practice of using surrogates to express the amount of extent of anticipated take in an incidental take statement issued concomitant with a biological opinion.  The final rule also provides that consultations on programmatic actions that would not result in incidental take without specific future actions will not be ...

On May 6, 2015, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on several Endangered Species Act (ESA) reform bills, including at least three that are similar to bills introduced in 2014 in the House of Representatives.  The bills that were discussed include the following:

  • S.112 – Entitled the Common Sense in Species Protection Act of 2015, the bill would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider short-term economic costs when protecting critical habitat for endangered species.
  • S.292 – Entitled the 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency ...
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Nossaman’s Endangered Species Law & Policy blog focuses on news, events, and policies affecting endangered species issues in California and throughout the United States. Topics include listing and critical habitat decisions, conservation and recovery planning, inter-agency consultation, and related developments in law, policy, and science. We also inform readers about regulatory and legislative developments, as well as key court decisions.

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