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- Title
THE ECONOMICS OF ENDANGERED SPECIES: WHY LESS IS MORE IN THE ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF CRITICAL HABITAT DESIGNATIONS.
- Authors
Sinden, Amy
- Abstract
The Endangered Species Act ("ESA") is the paradigmatic "absolutist" statute of American environmental law--mandating that species be protected regardless of cost. However, one formerly underapplied section of the ESA allows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") to consider economic costs when designating "critical habitat" for endangered species. A recent Tenth Circuit decision, New Mexico Cattle Growers Association v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 248 F.3d 1277 (10th Cir. 2001), has reinvigorated this provision. Economic analyses performed by FWS in the wake of Cattle Growers have involved increased quantification, formalization, and complexity, a trend that reflects a broader faith in cost-benefit analysis that has recently emerged within both government and academia. This Article argues that the ascendancy of cost-benefit analysis should not replace well-tested, superior approaches to assessing economic costs in environmental standard setting. Throughout the 1970s, Congress generally eschewed formal economic cost-benefit analysis in favor of "short-cut" standards, an approach to environmental regulation that provides for consideration of regulatory costs without requiring the substantial investment necessary for a fully quantified analysis. In contrast, applying formal economic cost-benefit analysis to the ESA is inconsistent with congressional intent and, moreover, simply a bad idea. Cost-benefit analysis forces incommensurable values into a common metric; it produces hopelessly indeterminate results; it clouds transparency and undermines public participation; and it delivers all this regulatory imperfection for an unreasonably high price.
- Subjects
ENDANGERED species; ENVIRONMENTAL law; U.S. Fish &; Wildlife Service; WILDLIFE conservation; ACTIONS &; defenses (Administrative law)
- Publication
Harvard Environmental Law Review, 2004, Vol 28, Issue 1, p129
- ISSN
0147-8257
- Publication type
Article