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HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
OF 1973,
including Its Relationship to CITES (updated April 2008)
Congress passed the Endangered
Species Preservation Act in 1966,
providing a means for listing native
animal species as endangered and
giving them limited protection. The
Departments of Interior, Agriculture,
and Defense were to seek to protect
listed species, and, insofar as consistent
with their primary purposes, preserve
the habitats of such species. The Act
also authorized the U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to acquire land as
habitat for endangered species. In
1969, Congress amended the Act to
provide additional protection to species
in danger of “worldwide extinction”
by prohibiting their importation and
subsequent sale in the United States.
This Act called for an international
meeting to adopt a convention to
conserve endangered species. One
amendment to the Act changed its
title to the Endangered Species
Conservation Act.
A 1973 conference in Washington, D. C.
led 80 nations to sign the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES), which monitors, and in some
cases, restricts international commerce
in plant and animal species believed to
be harmed by trade.
Later that year, Congress passed the
Endangered Species Act of 1973. It
- defined “endangered” and
“threatened” [section 3];
- made plants and all invertebrates
eligible for protection [section 3];
- applied broad “take” prohibitions to
all endangered animal species and
allowed the prohibitions to apply to
threatened animal species by special
regulation [section 9];
- required Federal agencies to use their
authorities to conserve listed species
and consult on “may affect” actions
[section 7];
- prohibited Federal agencies from
authorizing, funding, or carrying out
any action that would jeopardize a
listed species or destroy or modify its
“critical habitat” [section 7];
- made matching funds available to
States with cooperative agreements
[section 6];
- provided funding authority for
land acquisition for foreign species
[section 8]; and
- implemented CITES protection in the
United States [section 8].
Congress enacted significant
amendments in 1978, 1982, and 1988,
while keeping the overall framework of
the 1973 Act essentially unchanged. The
funding levels in the present Act were
authorized through Fiscal Year 1992.
Congress has annually appropriated
funds since that time.
Principal amendments are listed below:
1978:
- Provisions were added to Section
7, allowing Federal agencies to
undertake an action that would
jeopardize listed species if the action
is exempted by a Cabinet-level
committee convened for this purpose;
- Critical habitat was required to be
designated concurrently with listing a
species, when prudent, and economic
and other impacts of designation were
required to be considered in deciding
on boundaries [section 4];
- The Secretary of Agriculture (for
the Forest Service) was directed
to join the Secretaries of Interior,
Commerce, and Defense in developing
a program for conserving fish,
wildlife and plants, including listed
species; land acquisition authority
was extended to all such species
[section 5];
- The definition of “species” with
respect to “populations” was
restricted to vertebrates; otherwise,
any species, subspecies, or variety
of plant, or species or subspecies
of animal remained eligible for
protection under the Act [section 3].
1982:
- Determinations of the status of species
were required to be made solely
on the basis of biological and trade
information, without consideration
of possible economic or other effects
[section 4];
- A final rule to determine the status
of a species was required to follow
within one year of its proposal unless
withdrawn for cause. This requirement
replaced a two-year limit that had
been enacted in 1978 on adopting a
final rule. Failure to meet the two-year deadline had been grounds for
mandatory withdrawals of more than
1500 proposed species listings in 1979
[section 4];
- Section 10 included a provision to
designate experimental populations
of listed species that could be subject
to different treatment under section
4 for critical habitat, section 7 for
interagency cooperation, and section
9 for prohibitions;
- Section 9 included a prohibition
against removing endangered plants from land under Federal jurisdiction
and reducing them to possession
- Section 10 introduced habitat
conservation plans, providing
“incidental take” permits for listed
species in connection with otherwise
lawful activities.
1988:
- Monitoring candidate and recovered
species was required, with adoption
of emergency listing when there is
evidence of significant risk [section 4];
- Several amendments dealt with
recovery matters: 1) recovery plans
were required to undergo public
notice and comment, and affected
Federal agencies were required to
give consideration to those comments;
2) new subsection 4(g) required
five years of monitoring recovered
species; and 3) biennial reports were
required on the development and
implementation of recovery plans and
on the status of all species with plans;
- A new section 18 required a report
of all reasonably identifiable
expenditures by the Federal
government and States that received
section 6 funds on a species-by-species
basis on the recovery of endangered
or threatened species [see last page];
and
- Protection for endangered plants was
extended to include a prohibition on
malicious destruction on Federal land
and other “take” that violates State
law [section 9].
2004:
- National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2004 (Public Law number
108-136)
- Section 4(a)(3) exempted the
Department of Defense from critical
habitat designations so long as
an integrated natural resources
management plan prepared under
section 101 of the Sikes Act (16 U.S.C.
670a) and acceptable to the Secretary of
the Interior is in place.
The Endangered Species
Act and What We Do
General Information Partnerships
with States, Communities and Landowners Our
Listing Program Our
Consultations Program Habitat Conservation Planning Our
Recovery & Delisting Program Grants
to States, Territories and Private Landowners Working
with Tribes
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