The Endangered Species Act was created with a worthy goal: protecting species at risk of extinction. But more than 50 years later, its implementation has strayed far from that original purpose.
A new CFACT policy report, “Endangered Species Act Implementation Is Severely Flawed,” by David Wojick, Ph.D., examines several major problems with the way the ESA is administered today — from extraordinarily expensive permitting requirements to questionable federal spending priorities and ongoing legal battles over recovered species such as the gray wolf.
Among the report’s findings, a Florida landowner seeking to build a home on five acres faced an ESA-related fee of $139,440, while federal ESA expenditures totaled more than $1.1 billion in the most recent year examined.
The report argues that protecting endangered species remains a worthy objective, but that the ESA’s implementation needs significant reform to better respect property rights, sound science and responsible government.
Read the full report below.