Post by bluemingidiot on Jul 19, 2022 10:03:32 GMT
A decade ago, the US Fish & Wildlife Service declared over 1,500 acres of the Poitevent family’s Louisiana property as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog. That designation would have restricted the family’s ability to use their land, potentially costing them millions of dollars in lost economic benefit. But there was one problem: the frog had not been seen anywhere in Louisiana for over 50 years. And individual dusky gopher frogs could not have survived on the Poitevents’ land without significant modification. In other words, the Poitevents’ land was not a “habitat” for the frog.
In Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, a unanimous Supreme Court held that land designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) must be habitable for the species the Service seeks to protect. As the court explained, under the ordinary understanding of how the English language works, adjectives modify nouns, so designated property must be habitat before it can be critical habitat.
The Service recently jettisoned the rule defining “habitat” that it adopted to comply with Weyerhaeuser. In doing so, it undermined the Supreme Court’s holding in Weyerhaeuser, ignored the Constitution’s separation of powers, and reinstalled a regime of capricious habitat designations. Relying on agency “expertise” and a belief that the statute enacts a broad “conservation purpose” to exclude all other goals, the Fish & Wildlife Service determines what private property gets designated based on individual circumstances.
In Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, a unanimous Supreme Court held that land designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) must be habitable for the species the Service seeks to protect. As the court explained, under the ordinary understanding of how the English language works, adjectives modify nouns, so designated property must be habitat before it can be critical habitat.
The Service recently jettisoned the rule defining “habitat” that it adopted to comply with Weyerhaeuser. In doing so, it undermined the Supreme Court’s holding in Weyerhaeuser, ignored the Constitution’s separation of powers, and reinstalled a regime of capricious habitat designations. Relying on agency “expertise” and a belief that the statute enacts a broad “conservation purpose” to exclude all other goals, the Fish & Wildlife Service determines what private property gets designated based on individual circumstances.
