The Washington Post's July 17 editorial, "This endless environmental review is failing on all counts," is completely out of base in its characterization of the Endangered Species Act. In an effort to educate audiences on the faulty logic employed by the Post's editorial board, we are sharing the Letter to the Editor that Defenders of Wildlife submitted to set the record straight. The Post did not select the LTE for publication.

The July 17 editorial, “This endless environmental review is failing on all counts,” could not have been more off base in its characterization of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the role of healthy ecosystems and thriving wildlife populations in serving society’s needs and addressing climate change needs. First, the editorial cherry picks two projects out of the hundreds of thousands that have undergone ESA review over the law’s 50-year history to argue that the ESA and protection of endangered species and ecosystems are incompatible with economic development and the battle against climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Defenders of Wildlife analysis of the ESA review process found that out of 88,290 projects evaluated between 2008 and 2015, not a single project was stopped or required to be substantially altered. Other data have shown that on average the overwhelming majority of ESA reviews are completed within 35 days. Several weeks of review to prevent the extinction of endangered species is neither onerous nor unreasonable.

A strong and fully functioning ESA also helps produce and maintain trillions of dollars in economic benefits. The purpose of the ESA is to conserve endangered and threatened species and their ecosystems. The economic benefits of ecosystem services in the U.S. are an estimated $5.3 trillion in value. Studies have shown that Americans engaged in wildlife viewing activities, including birdwatching, generate approximately $250 billion in economic revenue. Other studies have found that pollinators including bees provided tens of billions of dollars of economic benefits to U.S. agriculture. Notwithstanding a couple of anecdotes selected by the editorial board, the ESA has a proven 50-year track record of successfully balancing the goal of preventing extinction with economic growth and other societal goals.

Finally, the editorial bizarrely suggests that we may need to choose between protecting endangered species and winning the battle against climate change. The reality is that we are facing twin global environmental crises – the unprecedented extinction of animals, plants and other species and an accelerating rise in global temperatures – neither of which will be solved without the other. To stem the ongoing mass extinction of species and destruction of the natural world will require mitigating the ecological impacts of human-caused climate change. And maintaining healthy ecosystems and wildlife populations will be essential to mitigating climate change given their ability to store and capture carbon and other greenhouse gases.