Defining Habitat to Promote Conservation Under the ESA
The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service raises important questions about the scope of the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA’s) protections for critical habitat. Foremost among them is a question one might think was long settled: what is “habitat”? In a short ruling, the Weyerhaeuser Court opined that “critical habitat” must first be “habitat,” but it did not attempt to define exactly what habitat is or how much deference the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should get on what is both a biological and policy question.
Species Protection as a Natural Climate Solution
This Article, adapted from Chapter 16 of What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?, 2d Edition (ELI Press, forthcoming 2020), explores existing and potential wildlife conservation policies that could play a vital role in mitigating global climate change. It describes how climate change is impacting wildlife and biodiversity around the globe and reviews the history and current state of U.S. policy, including how the federal government currently manages climate change issues under the ESA.
NEPA’s Trajectory: Our Waning Environmental Charter From Nixon to Trump?
Heralded in 1970 as the nation’s environmental Magna Carta, the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA’s) luster seems faded and its future uncertain. While Trump Administration initiatives threaten to diminish further and perhaps even dismantle aspects of NEPA, this Article chronicles how the current assault merely continues NEPA’s unfortunate trajectory, examining how the courts, the U.S. Congress, and the executive branch each have whittled away at the Act. NEPA consequently sits at a critical juncture: it could soon fade away or it could hew back toward its original promise.
The Trump Card: Tarnishing Planning, Democracy, and the Environment
One of the most important and transformative mechanisms the U.S. Congress has ever created to protect the environment is under assault from the Donald Trump Administration. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ushered in the modern era of U.S. environmental law.