Today, Explained - The Endangered Endangered Species Act

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

The White House has proposed stripping the Endangered Species Act of key provisions - the same legislation that helped save the grizzly bear, bald eagle and humpback whale. But Congressional Republicans say protecting some critters is hurting farmers and businesses in big ways. Vox’s Umair Irfan explains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber's got all sorts of new features that they're adding to the Uber app. One of them is to help you find your Uber driver. You can choose a color to light up your phone's screen, and you just hold it up, and it makes it easier for your driver to spot you in a crowd or at night. Who doesn't like colors? That's just one of the many new features in the Uber app. You can find out about all of them at uber.com slash moving forward. Umair Irfan, you report on the environment and energy here at Vox.

Word on the street is that the Endangered Species Act has itself become endangered. Well, certainly parts of it are under threat. Last week, the Trump administration issued a proposal that would change the Endangered Species Act in the most extensive way since it was signed in 1973. So what exactly is the Trump administration trying to change? Well, one, they want to introduce financial calculations into the Endangered Species Act. Basically, they want people to weigh the cost of complying with the rules to protect these organisms against the benefit of keeping them alive. And the concern among environmentalists is that that can be used to prevent an animal

from going on the endangered species list. Okay. The other big change that they've proposed is what they do to species that are threatened, that is one level below endangered. So threatened species isn't just like a description. It's an actual sort of category here. That's right. These are species that are potentially facing threats of extinction. Okay. Sometime in the future based on whatever trends we're seeing right now. And a lot of the exact same protections that go to endangered species go to threatened species.

And the Trump administration now wants to do these rulings on a case-by-case basis rather than by default. And the worry for environmentalists is that they may find a threatened species and they may not afford them the same protections. The other sort of tweak to that as well is that they're defining threats as what they consider to be plausible. And one of those things that they may not consider plausible is climate change. And so a species that may be facing threats or extinction due to rising sea levels or changing temperatures and things like that, that may not count as a real threat to the Trump administration. So those species that face those kinds of challenges may not receive those legal protections. Is the Trump administration acting alone here or is this in concert with other groups?

Yeah, there are several proposals in Congress right now for revising the Endangered Species Act in various ways. What are the other proposals that are sprouting up? Is it stuff like what the Trump administration is proposing? Yeah, basically. I mean, a lot of limiting what kinds of animals can go on the species, what kinds of protections they get, doing a cost-benefit analysis to make sure that the cost to industry is tabulated as well. Which animals are most at risk here, be they endangered or threatened?

Well, the changes as proposed right now aren't retroactive. They won't go back to anything that's already on the list. Right now, this is for the new animals that would be added to the list. Oh, and which are those? Do we know? Well, one big fight right now is over the sage grouse. The sage grouse. Not exactly the sexiest endangered species?

It depends. I mean, some people have a thing for birds that have big, that look like they're wearing feather boas, but, you know. Different strokes for different folks. Sure. It was a candidate species back in 2010, and it lives throughout much of the West. And the concern was immediately that, you know, this is a free-roaming bird that if it's labeled as endangered, suddenly it would rule out a lot of development out West. Male sage-grouse gather in the grasslands of Wyoming to advertise their virility

with a finery of feathers and proud posturing. Wow, I'm just looking up the sage-grouse. The sage-grouse looks like straight up out of, like, a 90s rap music video or something like that. That is about fair. I mean, they're very notorious, not only for how they look, but how they behave.

Like they have a very elaborate mating ritual that they call lecking. What's that? Oh, I think you just have to look at a video and see it happen. Okay. A male tries to mate with as many females as he can. Is it safe for work?

It's safe for work. Females are much drabber looking, but extremely choosy. They will only mate with the most impressive male, and they judge a male's worthiness by the sounds he makes. uh-huh uh-huh and this is like where this is this is in like wyoming colorado and idaho and um but what the new changes would do for the sage grouse essentially it would mean that if environmentalists wanted it listed on the endangered species act they would also have to start calculating how much money would a mining

company lose if they had to not mine on land to protect the sage-grouse? How much would it cost to build, you know, a wildlife corridor in order to keep its mating habitats, you know, intact and nesting grounds away from noisy machinery and things like that? And these are considerations that lawmakers would only have to make after these changes are made to the Endangered Species Act. Right. The Endangered Species Act as it stands right now, it really doesn't take financial concerns into account. I mean, they think that protecting an endangered species

is a value in and of itself. And now the Trump administration proposal is essentially saying you have to attach a dollar amount to how much it would cost to preserve these organisms. The other big change, of course, is what it would do to animals that are threatened. So right now, the sage-grouse is a candidate species. It's not quite yet endangered, so it would likely be listed as threatened. But with the changes that are underway, it would not receive the same protections as it would prior to the current proposal, essentially.

What's the rationale for these revisions? Who's making the argument that there shouldn't be as many considerations being made for threatened species or endangered species? Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso said that States, counties, wildlife managers, home builders, construction companies, farmers, ranchers, and other stakeholders are all making it clear that the Endangered Species Act is not working today. Utah Republican Rob Bishop said that the Endangered Species Act has been hijacked

by environmentalists who use it as a cudgel to block the kinds of development that they don't like, like mining and drilling and things like that. Essentially, they say that it's being used beyond what it was intended to do. And so by dialing it back, they think they can reach a more appropriate balance with industry and, you know, human development goals versus also protecting the environment. Are there examples of one of these protections that came out of the Endangered Species Act that, I don't know, has cost people their livelihoods or something like that? There are certainly elements of the Endangered Species Act that have caused a lot of landowners frustration. One big example is the bald eagle itself. Something like that? There are certainly elements of the Endangered Species Act that have caused a lot of landowners frustration. Yeah. One big example is the bald eagle itself. It's not an endangered species anymore, but it's still protected.

And some chicken farmers are very upset that their farms are now basically all-you-can-eat buffets for these eagles. Because that bald eagle is a killer. That bald eagle is a ruthless apex predator. That's why we want it on our national seal. Are there other examples? There was the case of Tong Ming Lin. He was an immigrant who bought up some land out in California to farm vegetables to sell to the local Chinese community there. Okay. And one day while plowing his land with a tractor and realized that he was living on the Atipton kangaroo rat habitat.

And that's an endangered species. And when the government found out about that, they put him on the hook for upward of three years in jail and a $300,000 fine. Damn. The charges were later dropped, but this became, you know, a cost celebra on the right because it was showing the government overstepping its bounds

and, you know, targeting a small-time farmer. And, you know, this just kind of fit into the iconic David versus Goliath type story of a farmer fighting big government. Versus the kangaroo rat. Versus the kangaroo rat. Oh, it's very cute. Sure. Another example from California was the San Bernardino County Medical Center. When it was going up in the mid-90s, they found that it was actually on the habitat of the Deli Sands flower-loving fly.

So they had to move the whole hospital 250 feet. And it cost $4 million to do that. Ouch. Yeah. It sounds like a very complicated dance between regulation and the responsibilities, say, lawmakers might have to their constituents. Yeah, and that's part of why people try to avoid getting government involved at all. The Endangered Species Act, some people allege that it creates some perverse incentives. People are really worried about finding an endangered animal on their property.

So if they have any word that there's a bird that's nesting in trees that could be endangered, they may deliberately cut down those trees to get rid of that habitat. Oh, wow. There's also this phenomenon known as shoot, shovel, and shut up, which is where a landowner, if they find an endangered animal, they'll shoot it, bury it underground surreptitiously,

and not say a word about it to anybody. Wow. It's a huge deal for property owners because your property value will tank if they find an endangered species on it. And are these revisions a done deal? I mean, if the Trump administration is changing how it enforces this act, there's no stopping them, right? Well, there's a 60-day comment period which means the public can weigh in but very rarely does a proposal change during the comment period.

What could force it to change is lawsuits from environmental groups who sue the government and say that you're not enforcing the law as it's written. And the courts have been kind of open to protecting the environment and they have historically been generally a little bit more favorable toward protecting endangered organisms and things like that. So it's not a foregone conclusion that this will go through, but it is the likeliest bet for people who want to modify the Endangered Species Act. Do we know how Brett Kavanaugh feels about the sage grass? We don't, but there is a looming Supreme Court case in October, the Weyerhaeuser versus the United States that deals with the Endangered Species Act.

And we know that Kennedy, for example, historically, while he was a fairly conservative judge, did side with environmentalists on several important environmental cases. Kavanaugh has been a little bit more skeptical of authority of government when it comes to protecting the environment. So very likely he will side with the conservative majority. But again, it's really hard to say at this point without seeing him on the court. Coming up, once upon a time, a Republican president signed the Endangered Species Act into law. This is Today Explained. Thank you.

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rate, and review it. And while you're at it, you can rate and review Today Explained. It really helps. Thanks. So how long has the Endangered Species Act been around, Umair? It's been around since 1973. 1973. A Republican was president then, yeah? You may remember one Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon. Not a crook.

Not a crook and also somewhat of an environmentalist. Clean air and clean water, the wise use of our land, the protection of wildlife and natural beauty, parks for all to enjoy. These are part of the birthright of every American. To guarantee that birthright, we must act, and act decisively. It is literally now or never. Three years before the Endangered Species Act, Nixon created the EPA. And then signed the Endangered Species Act. And then signed the Endangered Species Act, also signed the National Environmental Policy Act, and a bunch of other amendments to the Clean Air Act, and, you know, advanced a lot of environmental regulation.

So that's to say that this thing had bipartisan support? It had bipartisan support. It had conservative support. It had public support. So it was wildly popular at the time. I mean, who does not want to save critters? And what was on the agenda then? Why create the Endangered Species Act in 1973? What was at risk? I think one of the big concerns was the bald eagle itself. America itself. America itself.

America's national symbol that may one day go extinct. In the 1960s, just over 400 nesting pairs remained in the continental United States. In the 70s, two centuries after embracing an icon of wildness, the U.S. declared the bald eagle in danger. There was a lot of deforestation going on. The other big concern was DDT, which was a major pesticide that was used at the time, but it was found to have been softening the eggs that they were laying in. So it was harming how young bald eagles were being born essentially. And so there was a generation of bald eagles that were being, you know, chemically poisoned and they were not the only animal, you know, like the spotted owl was another famous animal that was being threatened. So once people started

realizing that they were at risk of, you know, losing these species forever, they were spurred to action and they decided to take concerted steps to start saving the bald eagle and other animals, other charismatic megafauna, as biologists call them. Charismatic megafauna? Well, there's been the American alligator. Grizzly bear, the humpback whale, the black-footed ferret, the Florida manatee.

These are animals that were teetering on the brink of extinction, but didn't die off and are still around. Because of the ESA. Because of the Endangered Species Act, yeah. Researchers have said that between 1973 and 1998, there are 172 species that were saved by the Endangered Species Act that would otherwise be extinct were it not for that law. How many species are on the list, are on the Endangered Species Act right now? I checked this morning, and according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,

there are 948 plants listed as endangered or threatened, and there are 1,459 animals. And 99% of the species that were ever listed on the endangered species list are still alive. What happened to that 1%? Well, 11 have gone extinct. Wow. But given that there's more than a thousand species that are listed there, losing only 11, I think it seems like it's a pretty good track record. When exactly did the Endangered Species Act become something that lawmakers wanted to revise or in some ways undo? There were rumbles from the very beginning. I mean, anytime the government is telling somebody what to do, there's always going to be a little bit of resentment building up. So when you're starting to tell the logging industry that they can't cut down certain forests or you're telling oil drillers that they can't drill in certain types of habitats, then they start pushing back. Then they start going to their lawmakers and saying, look, we need these jobs.

We need these resources. And really, what's one critter between a few friends? And let's change the rules a little bit. We're not going to drive them completely to extinction, but we may move a few of them out of this particular area. Yeah. How's that for a tradeoff? How has it survived until now? I mean, it's survived because it's wildly popular.

I mean, this is, you know, something you can tell a little kid about and they'll understand. I mean, nobody wants to be confronted in a town hall by a little kid asking, you know, the lawmaker, why do you want to kill off my favorite animal? Is there more public support now for rolling back protections like these so that the government can support business mining, drilling, natural gas, whatever it might be? Yeah, I think there is a little bit more public support for changing how the Endangered Species Act works, particularly in the states that are facing these constraints among states like Wyoming, which count on the energy industry as a big part of their economy. But Wyoming also counts on tourism as a big part of its economy as well. So how do you balance those things? That's the challenge that they're going to face. And this is, I guess, another front in the culture war, basically, because, you know, protecting the environment is an issue that's now been very strongly associated with the left. And so undermining

this, or at least pushing back on it in a way that benefits industry, could be a way of delivering to the base while also, you know, trolling the libs. Lots of species may be about to leave the planet, and I don't care. They've always left the planet. Dinosaurs left the planet. All you lefty tree-hugger, you know, granola-eating. He's not a lefty tree-hugger. Come on, wine, give me a break.

A three-inch lizard. I mean, this is some of the most productive oil fields we have in America. Is the problem here that people have forgotten what was on the table in 1973 if a piece of legislation like this didn't come along to save the American bald eagle? That's a big part of it. I mean, many of environmental laws are kind of victims of their own success and that they solve the problem and then suddenly people think that they're completely unnecessary. But one of the criticisms of the Endangered Species Act is that,

very few species have ever been taken off the list. About 1.3% have ever been removed. Because a doctor, if I admit 100 patients to the hospital and only three recover enough under my treatment to be discharged, I would deserve to lose my medical license. And so depending on how you look at that, well, the critics will say that, well, it shows that the Endangered Species Act isn't working. But then, you know, environmentalists will say that the vast majority of animals and plants that are on the endangered species list are still alive. The fact that they're still alive shows that the act is working and that those protections are still needed until they're eventually able to be taken off the list. I wonder, I mean, in terms of value, it's easy to say that opening up this plot of land to natural gas development is worth millions of dollars to this state, this community, but it's easy to say that opening up this plot of land to natural gas development is worth millions of dollars to this state, this community.

But it's hard to put a price tag on some beetle or some bird that we don't even know the name of that might be wiped off the planet, right? That's right. I mean, it's much easier to quantify tangible economic development against this sort of ethereal value of nature yeah but nature does have value and oftentimes it has value in ways that we don't understand or appreciate right away an animal can serve a role in an ecosystem that can have a ripple effect when it's removed but there are also there is a movement in the environmental community to value ecosystem services basically trying to attach a dollar value to things like watersheds or like swampland and say that these are places that

naturally filter water. And so they make it unnecessary to build, say, a new treatment plant. And so if you weigh those two, then you can quantify and say, preserving a certain number of acres of wetland adds $100 million of value to the economy overall. It seems like it kind of comes down to a bit of a moral question. Is anyone having the moral conversation about the moral obligation we might have as Americans to protect our species and our plants? Is that a conversation they're having in Congress or in the Trump administration? I can't speak to the Trump administration, but I mean, the fact that the Endangered Species Act was written without financial constraints

built into it shows that it wasn't at its outset a moral question. They weren't necessarily trying to weigh costs and benefits. They said there was an inherent value just in preserving these animals. And so the cost calculation never really entered into the equation until much more recently. Umair Irfan reports on the environment for Vox. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. Before we go, one last reminder that Uber is moving forward.

They've got a bunch of new features to take the stress out of your pickup, and you can read all about them at uber.com slash moving forward.