This op-ed in The Hill, written by Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Andrew Bowman, argues against using the Endangered Species Act as a bargaining chip in permitting reform, contending that recent moves to gut "take" protections and shift consultation requirements to states are unjustified given evidence the law rarely blocks development, and calls for targeted fixes instead of weakening core ESA safeguards.
America needs to build. We need affordable energy, a modern electric grid, more housing and infrastructure capable of meeting the demands of a growing economy.
But what kind of America are we building?
A prosperous country cannot be measured only in miles of transmission lines and pipelines, acres of data centers or megawatts of new energy. We also need abundant nature consisting of clean rivers, healthy forests and intact landscapes. A future dominated by concrete and steel but diminished of the extraordinary natural heritage that has defined this continent for eons is not abundance. It is a poorer America.
That is the false choice at the heart of the permitting debate now before Congress: that to build the infrastructure America needs, we must weaken the bedrock environmental laws protecting nature. Nowhere is that trade-off more misguided — or consequential — than in the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act.
For more than half a century, the Endangered Species Act has embodied a simple American value: Wildlife is part of our shared national inheritance, and we have a responsibility not to allow species to disappear forever.
Through the act — adopted with near unanimous, bipartisan support in 1973 — Congress gave that promise teeth through two key concepts: a prohibition on “take” of imperiled species and the requirement that federal agencies consult with federal government wildlife experts when projects they authorize, fund or carry out may affect those species.
In the last month, the administration has all but eliminated the “take” prohibition, including through a preposterous interpretation of the law that the destruction of habitat does not rise to the level of take. Common sense dictates that destroying the habitat an animal needs to feed, breed and survive can kill it just as surely as a bullet regardless of whether such harm was intended.
And now the permitting reform bill just released in the Senate will gut the consultation requirement by allowing that critical function to be delegated to individual states rather than federal agencies charged with the protection of wildlife for all Americans and not subject to the political winds and governmental priorities of any particular state.
Take. Harm. Consultation. These aren’t bureaucratic ornaments. They are the machinery that makes the Endangered Species Act work. Now that machinery is being taken apart, resulting in an Endangered Species Act in name only that is increasingly incapable of fulfilling its purpose.
And for what? The premise that consultation required by the act is preventing America from building is unsupported by the evidence.
A peer-reviewed analysis of 88,290 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service consultations concluded that not one project was stopped or extensively altered because the agency found that it would jeopardize a species or adversely modify its critical habitat. Informal consultations typically took about two weeks; formal consultations about two months.
Consultation isn’t designed to stop development. It allows wildlife experts and project proponents to identify problems, reduce harm and find a way forward. The Endangered Species Act is not standing in the way of progress. It is how we make progress responsibly.
Clean energy or wildlife. Housing or habitat. Infrastructure or healthy ecosystems. These are false choices. A prosperous country that spans billions of acres should be capable of building what we need while protecting what we cannot replace.
That is what makes the current Senate political bargain so troubling and baffling.
The Trump administration has made gutting the Endangered Species Act a priority, and Republicans in the current Congress have proposed legislation to rewrite it only to be stymied by public outrage. Yet Democrats negotiating this permitting package have agreed to give them all they want, even with the prospect of them soon gaining control of both the House and Senate.
Why concede through negotiation changes that Endangered Species Act opponents have struggled to enact on their own, particularly when the evidence does not show that the law is responsible for America’s permitting problems?
There is a better deal to be had.
Congress should tackle the barriers that actually prevent America from building. Improve agency coordination. Give wildlife agencies the staff and resources to make timely decisions. Address duplication and genuine bottlenecks. And perhaps most importantly, proactively identify low-conflict locations where transmission lines, energy projects and other large-scale infrastructure can be built quickly without resulting in unacceptable wildlife losses and damage to our cherished public lands.
But leave the Endangered Species Act out of it.
More than 50 years ago, Republicans and Democrats came together around the idea that preventing extinction is a national responsibility. They understood something worth remembering now: Wildlife isn’t an obstacle to America’s prosperity. It is part of what makes this country rich.
The Endangered Species Act must not be used as a bargaining chip in permitting reform negotiations. We can build the future America needs without sacrificing the natural heritage we share, need and love.
Andrew Bowman is president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife.
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