Since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law 50 years ago today, it has helped protect over 1,600 species in the U.S.
To celebrate this landmark law, a few of these animals visited the White House.
Our Administration is committed to conserving America’s wildlife. pic.twitter.com/KR00xHVvtp
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 28, 2023
Interesting read from the Associated Press, about the mostly *un*charismatic megafauna (‘gubmint bureaucrats’) at the pointy end of this legislation — “As the Endangered Species Act turns 50, those who first enforced it reflect on its mixed legacy”:
On Dec. 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act. “Nothing,” he said, “is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.” The powerful new law charged the federal government with saving every endangered plant and animal in America and enjoyed nearly unanimous bipartisan support.
The Act was so sweeping that, in retrospect, it was bound to become controversial, especially since it allowed species to be listed as endangered without consideration for the economic consequences. In that way it pitted two American values against each other: the idea that Americans should preserve their incredible natural resources (the United States invented the national park, after all) and the notion that capitalism was king and private property inviolate.
The Endangered Species Act was just one in a raft of environmental legislation passed beginning in the mid-1960s that included the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Taken together, it was the most extensive environmental legislation the world had ever seen…
The United States’ own national animals, the bison and the bald eagle, had been driven to near extinction. When they started to recover, Americans saw the Endangered Species Act as a success. But when animals that people had never heard of began interfering with development, it was a different story.Left to navigate this minefield was a group of young biologists in Washington — the first Office of Endangered Species.
THE SNAIL DARTER
Ichthyologist Jim Williams, the Office of Endangered Species’ first “fish guy,” was hired in 1974, just as things were getting up and running. Williams describes his cohort as “a bunch of conservation-minded biologists that were all on a mission to save every last one of our chosen group of organisms come hell or high water, and, by the way, to hell with the bureaucrats and politicians.”His unconventional attitude and methods soon became apparent with the listing of the snail darter, a little fish now so notorious it has become synonymous with government overreach. At the time, it had just been discovered and was only known to exist in one stretch of the Little Tennessee River — which the Tennessee Valley Authority was planning to dam.
“I started talking about listing it, and boy, oh boy, did the crap hit the fan,” Williams says. He said the associate director “called me in one day and said, ‘You’re going to cost us the whole damn Act. They’re going to just throw this thing out when you try to list this thing. You can’t do this.’ And I said, ‘Hey, I’m calling them like I see them.’”
Williams did list the snail darter. The Act survived. But it would never again enjoy the support of its earliest days. Whether the government should try to save all species from extinction, or if not, where to draw the line, became a point of conflict that has never been fully resolved…
Most money for endangered species goes to a small number of creatures, leaving others in limbo https://t.co/OkArAHq5e3
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 30, 2023
When all that you have is a hammer…
Since passage of the Endangered Species Act 50 years ago, more than 1,700 plants, mammals, fish, insects and other species in the U.S. have been listed as threatened or endangered with extinction. Yet federal government data reveals striking disparities in how much money is allocated to save various biological kingdoms.
Of the roughly $1.2 billion a year spent on endangered and threatened species, about half goes toward recovery of just two types of fish: salmon and steelhead trout along the West Coast. Tens of millions of dollars go to other widely known animals including manatees, right whales, grizzly bears and spotted owls.
But the large sums directed toward a handful of species means others have gone neglected, in some cases for decades, as they teeter on potential extinction.
At the bottom of the spending list is the tiny Virginia fringed mountain snail, which had $100 spent on its behalf in 2020, according to the most recent data available. The underground-dwelling snail has been seen only once in the past 35 years, according to government records, yet it remains a step ahead of more than 200 imperiled plants, animals, fish and other creatures that had nothing spent on their behalf…
An Associated Press analysis of 2020 data found fish got 67% of the spending, the majority for several dozen salmon and steelhead populations in California, Oregon and Washington. Mammals were a distant second with 7% of spending and birds had about 5%. Insects received just 0.5% of the money and plants about 2%. Not included in those percentages is money divided among multiple species.
Species drawing no spending at all included stoneflies threatened by climate change in Montana’s Glacier National Park, the stocky California tiger salamander that has lost ground to development and flowering plants such as the scrub lupine around Orlando, Florida, where native habitat has been converted for theme parks.
Such spending inequities are longstanding and reflect a combination of biological realities and political pressures. Restoring salmon and steelhead populations is expensive because they are widespread and hemmed in by massive hydroelectric dams. They also have a broad political constituency with Native American tribes and commercial fishing interests that want fisheries restored.
Tuesday Afternoon Open Thread
Old School
Here are the 21 US species declared extinct in 2023.
Baud
If there’s ever a war with the animals, I’m on their side.
Manyakitty
@Baud: #TeamOrca
cmorenc
It’s truly amazing how much of our key environmental legislation happened during the Republican administration of Richard Nixon, with his Administration’s blessing and encouragement. And with near-zero impediments or sabotage by then-current SCOTUS or lower federal courts.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Public opinion on the environment was strong then. He was a follower.
TaMara
Oh, yay! I was thinking I’d roll that into a climate post, but it really does deserve a post of its own. The vision Teddy Roosevelt had over 100 years ago and became reality many decades later, means I get to look out my window and see a mating pair of Bald Eagles sitting inthe big cottonwood.
Still needed, and still needs to have sharper teeth, but a remarkable accomplishment.
cmorenc
@Baud: Infinitely better to have a supportive follower like Nixon re: environmental legislation than someone like Trump who will eagerly burn it all down.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Also better to have an overwhelmingly Dem Congress and liberal Republican Congress critters.
wjca
Well, you were looking at quite liberal Chief Justices, that would be Earl Warren and Warren Burger, who had been appointed by Republican Presidents. How times have changed.
Marleedog
@Baud:
as in veto-proof.
Nixon would not have signed these progressive conservation laws otherwise.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Also, it was a topic that Nixon really didn’t give a damn about, one way or the other. He was very much a pre-culture war Republican.
West of the Cascades
@Marleedog: Nixon did veto the Clean Water Act (the Senate then voted 52-12 to override, and the House 247-23 — about two hours after Nixon had vetoed it at midnight … evidently not everyone was present). I’m pretty sure he signed the ESA, NEPA, and the Clean Air Act.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: He wasn’t pre-culture-war, it was really the first great burst of the culture war as we know it that got him into office and kept it there. He hated environmentalists and hippies and such. But he couldn’t win on this one, so he folded.
RaflW
Just read a Times story about the dismal snow season unfolding in the US west. Farmers are very anxiously looking up at where their spring “reservoir” should be, and ski areas are struggling to open.
And I can report that one of my favorite places, Arapahoe Basin in CO, has about 14 of over 100 trails open now. They’d typically be at 50-60 trails now, and talking about when in later January the next big batch of slopes would likely be deep enough.
Not this year.
In this context, Trump eager to “burn it all down” is far too apt. I was here, within sight of the smoke plume, the October (2020) that the East Troublesome fire just mind-bogglingly exploded to over 30,000 acres like the blink of an eye.
eta: Sorry to rudely ignore the ‘something good’ thread tag.
Parfigliano
@cmorenc: Then the Reagan Admin came
Geminid
I think Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) helped bring about the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency as well. That was a very consequential book.
cain
@RaflW:
Climate change is a big deal and we still aren’t doing enough to deal with it. I guess we just need to really feel the pain to the point that farming has to radically change to meet new weather patterns.
I reckon soon skiing is not going to be a thing anymore.
eclare
I knew as soon as I started reading the post that it would mention the snail darter. I lived in East TN at the time, things got ugly.
cain
Since this is a something good open thread – it seems that Rep Bill Johnson has resigned from Congress to become YSU president. That means, the GOP is down to 219. So they only retain the house by 2 people.
Those folks are going to eat each other. In an election year, if the only thing they have to show is that they impeached Biden during a roaring economy – I think they are going to get fucked in elections this year.
S Cerevisiae
@Geminid: Indeed it was. Silent Spring raised awareness about the environmental catastrophe of DDT in the food chain. The raptors that are common now were far more scarce in the 70’s when I was young.
Baud
@cain:
Too funny.
eclare
@cain:
What is YSU?
Steeplejack
@eclare:
Youngstown State University.
Mousebumples
I hope the Dems are on the ready to call for a new Speaker vote if enough GOP reps are out of town to flip things. Even if we only hold the Speakership for a short term, we might be able to get through some much need things, like Ukraine funding.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Thanks!
cain
@Mousebumples: That’s just the kind of dastardly thing from the playbook of McConnell. :-) They should totally do it. :D
Not only will they look dumb, they’d get castigated by their own supporters.
Alison Rose
This has nothing to do with endangered species because I certainly hope libraries never become one, but since it’s an OT: So happy to see Mychal Threets get a feature in the NYT! He’s just an absolute angel and a gem of a human being.
Fairfield is about 50 miles east of me, nice to see a (semi-)local guy making national news for such a good reason. He’s a beautiful soul.
Kifaru1
I’m not sure the amount of money spent reflects the level of protection. At the federal level, the endangered species act only applies if a federal permit is required for the project (in terms of potential development impacts). That already limits the application of the law. Some of the requirements for protection during construction are undertaken by the company developing a site, say using a bridge instead of a culvert where there are endangered snails or fish in a stream. They also fail to discuss that states in the U.S. have their own lists of endangered/threatened species that are specific to that state. For instance, in Virginia the tri-colored bat has been listed as endangered for a while but the federal listing is still “proposed”. https://services.dwr.virginia.gov/fwis/?Title=VaFWIS+Report+BOVA&lastMenu=Home.Species+Information&tn=.1&geoArea=&sppName=tri-colored+bat&geoType=None&geoVal=no+selection&sppTax=01%2C02%2C03%2C04%2C05%2C06%2C07%2C08%2C09%2C10%2C11%2C12&status=
Elizabelle
@Alison Rose: What a cool guy.
CarolPW
@Alison Rose: This is astonishing. Fairfield’s proximity to Travis made it a big redneck area when I lived in California and passed through there often. The idea that the locals would have tolerated him, let alone hired him, is fantastic.
eclare
@cain:
I like the way you think!
Alison Rose
@CarolPW: I think it’s gradually chilled out a little. Plus, he seems like someone it would be a real effort to dislike, whatever someone’s innate prejudices might be.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Old School:
Why would post that in this thread? It’s supposed to be a “something good” thread
eclare
@Alison Rose:
That is awesome. I grew up going to the local library. The head librarian there had a name of destiny: Mrs. Longfellow.
Mousebumples
So long as the rule exists that any 1 member can call for a new Speaker vote… Might as well help them with Finding Out…
Kay
Right now the United States does not have an exception to abortion bans to save the life of the mother.
That makes us the only country in the world without this exception. Dead last.
Kay
If you show up in an emergency room in an anti abortion state and you’ll die without an abortion they are permitted to deny you care and let you die.
That’s the law in the United States. They can kill women.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@cain:
Too bad he’s being installed as YSU president. Dude’s district didn’t even include parts of Mahoning County until the gerrymandering the Republicans in Columbus did and the DeWine-appointed trustees rammed this asswipe through.
Worst of all, this is what the supposed-Dem mayor of Youngstown had to say when the decision to hire Johnson was announced:
Brown is a black man, by the way. I have no idea why he said this when everyone at YSU did not want Johnson, he has no formal teaching/ educational background, and is a right-wing culture warrior who will destroy YSU’s reputation
Baud
@Kay:
Correct.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Only in the states where abortion isn’t protected by law. Besides, this will be stayed pending appeal I’m sure
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
We’re one country. The red states taint us all.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I don’t subscribe to that way of thinking
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You don’t think we’re one country?
Alison Rose
@eclare: Haha perfect!
Baud
The NJ primary can’t come soon enough.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I don’t agree with the notion that what red states do “taints us all”. I don’t believe that what the TX state government does, for example, reflects poorly on all Texans. There’s plenty of people fighting the good fight there
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Of course. But we all have a common national identity, which is diminished when atrocities like this occur in significant parts of the country with the tacit support of large parts of the population.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Goku, would you ever say this for any other right? I mean think of how insane that is to say “correction- you can only kill women IN TEXAS, Kay!”
Womens rights are the only right that are discussed like this. Texas is in the United States, HENCE, The United States allows women to bleed out in emergency rooms and be denied emergency medical care.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I mean, we’ve seen anti-abortion candidates and proposals go down in places like Kentucky recently
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Michigan bars the death penalty. However, Texas does not. Is the United States listed as one of the countries that bars the death penalty? No, it is not, because death penalty states are in the United States.
NotMax
FYI.
If you build them they will come.
Over 80 percent of new cars sold in Norway were electric in 2023.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
We can improve and beat them. But until we do, our reality is that the legal status of people who are pregnant is not protected in many areas.
NotMax
Bad linky. Fix.
If you build them they will come.
Over 80 percent of new cars sold in Norway were electric in 2023.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
@Baud:
I….see your points. I guess I had a knee-jerk reaction and felt like the states and people who believe in protecting women’s rights were being unfairly lumped in with the GOP’s evil. Sorry
Jackie
@cain: He was leaving regardless, to go to YSU. He hastened his departure by about a month.
Another Scott
An excellent anniversary.
Another bit of important good news:
Yet another BFD under Democrats!
I’m so old that I remember when W thought that Medicare Part D was going to lead to a permanent GQP majority. W signed it in December 2003; it didn’t fully take effect until 2006. And it had the infamous “donut hole” and all the other issues we recall. And many still remain. But this is important progress.
Politics is slow.
Progress isn’t inevitable. People have to do the work to push government and society forward. Democrats are doing it – ALL GQPers voted against the IRA; ALL Democrats voted for it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@NotMax: Norway also has over 20 electric ferry boats. The largest one is a car ferry that crosses Oslo Fjord and can carry up to 600 people.
They’re coming to the US too. I read that California is mandating zero emission ferry boats. Hydrogen fuel cell ferries will be allowed; there is one that is supposed to start carrying passengers across San Francisco Bay this month.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Decent people shouldn’t feel guilt or blame about the actions of others. But we can’t escape the fact that we’re connected to our fellow citizens and the laws their elected representatives enact.
Barbara
@Kay: Stated another way, it is permissible in the United States to bar women from receiving life-saving medical care.
Because it irks me, I alluded in an earlier thread to a law professor who appeared before a Senate committee and was mocked by Josh Hawley for using the expression pregnant people. When he challenged her she started to talk about the fluidity of gender when what she should have said was, “SENATOR, ARE YOU QUESTIONING WHETHER WOMEN ARE PEOPLE?”
Because that is actually what they are doing.
Jackie
@Another Scott: I’m so old I remember when we were told the new Medicare prices “wouldn’t go into effect until 2024,” we thought that’s soooo far away!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
When I visited Niagra Falls this last summer, both Maid of the Mist ferries were fully electric and had been since 2020. Cargo ships are fairly significant sources of carbon emissions, aren’t they? Are there plans for cargo ships to be fitted with hydrogen fuel cells?
ETA: Apparently there is: From the Maritime Executive
Barbara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They can probably carry back up batteries. This is an issue for private cruisers, which tend not to have the capacity to have spares or ready access to recharging facilities. We had an electric outboard for a while, but unfortunately the market is tiny and there wasn’t a lot of traction so bugs and problems never got solved.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Niagara.
/pedant
.
Surrender to destiny.
;)
lamh36
Good evening BJ!
Had work past 2 days and it’s been HELLA busy!
Respiratory virus season is in FULL swing!
Hope everyone had a great new years so far!
How is 2024 treating ya 2 days in? I can’t complain.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Maersk shipping took delivery of a medium sized “feeder” container ship that will run on “green” methanol. It was built in South Korea, and will haul containers across the Baltic Sea. They have orders for larger ones, and now it’s teaming up with companies that will supply tbe methanol.
Shipping companies are also looking at ammonia as another net-zero fuel. The EU is driving much of the prospective growth in net-zero maritime fuels by imposing mandates for fleets using European ports.
Maritime shipping is commonly described as responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions. I think passenger flight accounts for 4%, although that could include cargo flights. Cement production is a big source, accounting for up to 8%.
wjca
Presidents have enormous leeway in what they say when signing (or rejecting) legislation. If you read Nixon’s statement in signing them, he sounds far, far closer to enthusiastic than to grudging.
It was a different time. I have no brief for Nixon, and wasn’t a fan at the time. But on the environment he wasn’t the demon you imagine.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Have you looked up “geologic” hydrogen? That is an interesting topic. People are only now beginning to prospect for it. Geologists found a very large field in the Lorraine region of France, while they were assessing methane levels. Now Total Energy and others are getting permits to drill for hydrogen.
Because the EU plans on making hydrogen a major part of it’s future energy mix, the Lorraine field will show a lot about the potential of geologic hydrogen. One intriguing factor: geologic hydrogen comes from ongoing chemical reactions in the Earth’s crust, so the hydrogen is to some extent renewable.
I don’t really know if all this will work out, but if I had a lot of money to invest I’d look for a supplier of deep drilling technology. Between the search for hydrogen and development of geothermal power generation sites, there’s gonna be a whole lot of drilling going on..
wjca
Could be a golden opportunity to coopt the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: Always glad to see your cheerful posts — glad you’re enjoying your new job, however hectic!
trollhattan
@Kay:
Hell, California can’t even manage to vote out capital punishment, bless our hippie souls. Newsom did shelve all scheduled executions on entering office, but the governor is not empowered to vacate the sentences themselves.
Sac county’s last DA was all gung ho for the death penalty and while I don’t know our current DA’s specific stance, his actions have me thinking he’s more of same. “Blue county.”
Kay
@trollhattan:
Prosecutors will never admit it but they like the death penalty because it’s a bargaining chip to get defendants to plead to the most serious charges just to avoid execution. It’s the prosecutor protection law. They get life sentences without ever going to trial.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
Weird, geologic hydrogen? New one on me.
Geothermal is a plus but hard to envision becoming more than a complementary electricity source, one that becomes more useful at night when solar is, well, sleeping.
Bottlerock at the Geysers in California is the world’s largest field and generates about 800MW.
Kay
Tough day for women in the US. No laws protecting our lives and all college presidents must now be men.
Another giant leap backward for this crap country.
skerry
@Jackie: I guess I don’t understand how there is a Part D cap at $3250 when the donut hole starts at $5030.
Geminid
@wjca: The geothermal sector is still being developed, although people in the right plsces have been usung heothermal energy for a while now. Heologistd ms are now drilling 10,000 feet or more to inhoprs of developing this energy resource.
I read about a project in Nebraska where a cimpany hopes to find geologic hydrogen. The picked a site close to a fertilizer plant because right now, the plant is using hydrogen from reforming natural gas, a process that puts out a lot of CO2.
This is one of the obvious uses for both “green” hydrogen or geologic hydrogen: replacing the “gray” hydrogen that has been used in the fertilizer and chemical industries for decades now. Hydrogen is more problematic than natural gas for shipping through pipelines, so it’s best generated or extracted close to end-users.
Another Scott
@trollhattan:
From MattF in an earlier thread:
Science.org – HIDDEN HYDROGEN Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?
It exists, but who knows how much it can be scaled up, and other issues.
Cheers,
Scott.
narya
@lamh36: Got my flu and RSV vaxxes today (finally!). And wishing I could get another Covid vax; got the latest in September but I’m watching those case numbers go up.
trollhattan
Along with my rule to never take medical advice from an engineer and never drive over a bridge designed by a cardiologist, never listen to a realtor opining on the Federal Reserve.
I’d like to think our paper of record once upon a time would have not taken this seriously but alas, that ship has sailed and everybody has their own “publish” button.
Barbara
@skerry: The donut hole starts much lower than that. Look at Medicare and You, the CMS publication that provides basic benefit information. Something got mixed up in your sources.
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Thanks. Certainly doesn’t hurt to explore–we’ll have a hundred false starts for every breakthrough, and breakthroughs are what we need.
Just capturing, storing, transporting hydrogen is tricky. Those atoms be tiny!
Geminid
@trollhattan: People never paid much attention to geologic hydrogen until the last decade., but at least one geologist, Isabella Moretti, has been studying it for decades.
The Lorraine bydrogen field will be a good test-bed for geologic hydrogen, since the EU is already encouraging investment in hydrogen for use in in heavy transport, steelmaking etc. If the geologic hydrogen pans out, it could accelerate the EU’s adoption because it is much cheaper than other sources.
The IRA bill has incentives for producing “green” hydrogen, in the form of a $3/kilogram tax credit for hydrogen meeting a standard based on how the neccesary electricity is produced.
The International Energy Agency projects an 18% share for hydrogen in the 2050 energy economy, but the industry is only starting to develop and that 18% share is by no means certain.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
What’s exactly wrong with that person’s take?
ETA: When did he make it? The FED has reportedly said it will cut interest rates in the spring of 2024
TS
@Baud:
It happened in Ireland, not so long ago
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2022/10/22/savita-halappanavar-10-years-after-her-death-will-irish-abortion-laws-be-reformed-further/
Women will die in the US before change is implemented. And this should be emphasised to any woman of child bearing age who is thinking to tourist in the US.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
I haven’t! It sounds interesting and I hope something comes of it
lurker
@wjca: not sure of how people will view this as positive or negative…
Chief Justice Burger was a well known vehement opponent of environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in particular. He insisted on an opinion upholding the law in the strongest and most extreme terms possible, basically making the law nearly bulletproof. The tactic Burger had in mind was to interpret the law in a way that would force the hand of Congress to repeal the law. Nixon was good with the approach as well, since it did not get any bad publicity for him if Congress changed its mind.
However, Congress decided to leave the law largely undisturbed, eventually making some updates long after the law was passed, and the ESA remains one of the most potent environmental laws in the US or the world. Crazy stuff…
Chris T.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I can’t speak for trollhattan but:
and any one of those would be enough to stop anyone sensible from saying what “Dude X” said…