Endangered by Sprawl: How Runaway Development Threatens America's Wildlife

Estimates the growth of land consumption in metropolitan areas over the next 25 years, investigates locally implemented strategies to protect natural lands from overdevelopment, and offers "smart growth" as an option for reducing suburban sprawl

Critical Habitat at the Crossroads: Responding to the G.W. Bush Administration\u27s Attacks on Critical Habitat Designation under the ESA

In this article, we argue that the George W. Bush Administration\u27s ( Administration ) attacks on the critical habitat protections in the Endangered Species Act ( ESA ) warrant priority attention from the environmental movement. Many species across the United States and, indeed, around the world, continue to slip towards extinction. As Congress recognized when it passed the ESA, the decline of most species can be directly traced to the destruction of their habitat. Protection and restoration of ecosystems that support endangered species is thus fundamental to species conservation

Habitat Conservation Plans Under Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act: The Alabama Beach Mouse and the Unfulfilled Mandate of Species Recovery

Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) developed under Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been heavily promoted as a solution to the problem of balancing preservation of biodiversity with the rights of landowners. This Comment takes issue with the current policies employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in approving HCPs in order to grant incidental lake permits to take endangered species in their native habitats. In the context of litigation over FWS\u27s issuance of two recent permits to take the imperiled Alabama Beach Mouse, the Comment argues that FWS has construed narrowly the conservation mandate of the ESA so as to sanction use of a survival standard, as opposed to a recovery standard. Use of a recovery standard is the more reasonable interpretation of section 10, based on the purpose, text, and legislative history of the amendment to the ESA. The Alabama Beach Mouse has paid the ultimate price for FWS\u27s reliance on the lesser standard

Managed Relocation: Reducing the Risk of Biological Invasion

Key Finding Any organism that is relocated to a novel ecosystem has the potential to become an invasive species or spread “hitching” invasive species, or both. Managed Relocation is not congruent with Executive Order 13112 to the extent that it might facilitate “economic or environmental harm or harm to human, animal, or plant health.” Consequently, the actions by federal agencies or those entities supported by federal funding to engage in managed relocation need to be addressed in a manner consistent with EO 13751 Section 3(3), which compels Agencies to: Refrain from authorizing, funding, or implementing actions that are likely to cause or promote the introduction, establishment, or spread and invasive species in the United States, unless pursuant to guidelines that it has prescribed, the agency has determined and made public its determination that the benefits of such actions clearly outweigh the potential harm caused by invasive species; and that all feasible and prudent measures to minimize risk of harm will be taken in conjunction with these actions

Making Regulation Evolve: A Case Study in Maladaptive Management

This Article is the first cross-disciplinary, comprehensive assessment of one of the earliest regulatory reinvention programs developed to foster more participation and adaptation in decision-making—the Endangered Species Act’s Habitat Conservation Plan Program. Drawing not only from legal sources but also integrating data from recent scientific studies, interviews, surveys of government officials, newspaper investigations, and unpublished databases, this Article delves into the pioneering but defective HCP program as an example of regulatory innovation gone awry. In the active literature on regulatory reinvention, many have pointed to the HCP program as a prototype for collaborative, experimentalist innovations in governance. Though a few HCPs processes are promising examples of the value of broad participation and adaptation in regulation, this Article asserts that the HCP program, as implemented, largely allows for the proliferation of bilateral and inert agreements between agencies and developers for evading the ESA’s otherwise strict prohibitions. More fundamentally, the Article suggests that the HCP regulatory experiment is failing because the agencies charged with administering it have never seriously treated it like an experiment. As Congress again contemplates substantial ESA amendments, the Article argues that regulatory programs must themselves be periodically and systematically adapted in order for agencies, Congress and the public at large to learn and adapt from regulatory mistakes and successes. Only by viewing a regulatory program as an experiment, and by addressing the incentives of the agencies and applicants to cultivate participation and regulatory adaptation, can the HCP program—and indeed all regulation—evolve