Unanimous Supremes limit Endangered Species Act in Dusky Gopher Frog decision

By CFACT Ed November 4th, 202 0| Environment, Regulation |0 Comments @CFACT 

The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that the Endangered Species Act cannot be used to control land in Louisiana to protect the Dusty Gopher Frog, which currently only lives in Mississippi.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the court held that, “according to the ordinary understanding of how adjectives work, ‘critical habitat’ must also be ‘habitat… Only the ‘habitat’ of the endangered species is eligible for designation as critical habitat.”

This is a significant reform.  The ESA has become the favorite vehicle of activists seeking to control people’s use of their private land.  That the endangered species should actually be present on the land in question might seem a no-brainer, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t get it.  Today’s Supreme Court Decision reverses the Fifth Circuit.

Is the ESA no longer a blank check for eco-gadflies?

Read the full Supreme Court decision Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service at CFACT.org.