Endangered Species Act

This briefing report examines how two federal agencies--the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)--have implemented the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which sets forth processes for protecting plants and animals. Habitat designation has taken place for less than 20 percent of the species listed as endangered. Agency officials doubt whether designating critical habitats provides much additional benefit for a species, and critical habitat designation is considered a low priority. During fiscal years 1987 through 1991, when other federal agencies asked FWS or NMFS to consider the effect of proposed actions such as construction on a listed species, the two agencies allowed such projects to proceed as planned more than 90 percent of the time. While more than 650 domestic species are on the endangered species list, 600 others are recognized by the agencies as potentially imperiled. At the present pace of listing, it will take FWS until 2006 to list these species as endangered or threatened. Compounding this problem are the estimated 3,000 additional species that may be threatened or endangered in the future. The agencies attribute their slowness to resource constraints.

GAO found that: (1) the five major processes that the act established for protecting plant and animal species include the petition process, the listing and critical habitat designation process, the consultation process, the recovery process, and the habitat-conservation planning process; (2) the act specifies required time frames and factors that FWS and NMFS must consider when making act-related decisions for protecting plant and animal species; (3) the criteria also delineate the processes during which economic factors may be considered in reaching decisions; (4) 65 percent of the 209 petitions FWS and NMFS received through FY 1991 for listing endangered species provided adequate biological information to indicate that listing may be warranted; (5) from FY 1987 through FY 1991, almost 90 percent of all consultations between FWS and NMFS and other federal agencies regarding the effect of proposed actions on a species did not find any jeopardy to the species, while the agencies offered alternative actions to mitigate threats in most of the remaining cases; (6) FWS and NMFS are paying greater attention to developing mandated plans to guide the recovery of listed species and have approved recovery plans for over 60 percent of all listed species; (7) beyond the 650 species already on the endangered species list, FWS and NMFS recognize 600 others as being vulnerable enough to support proposals that would list them as endangered or threatened; and (8) it will take FWS until 2006 to list those additional 600 species as endangered or threatened, primarily because of resource constraints.