Environmental Policy – Habitat & Species

Overview

Transportation improvements should minimize impacts to wildlife and their habitats. Projects can also offer enhancements such as wildlife crossings, which help prevent collisions to the benefit of both wildlife and the traveling public.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) seeks to balance species protection with the need for development, including transportation improvements. However, that intended balance is often overlooked in pursuit of overly broad species recovery actions that have minimal impact.

To better harmonize these objectives, ARTBA supports the following reforms to the ESA:

• Development of a clear, concise definition of “habitat” to be used across all reviewing and permitting offices.
• Application of ESA regulations in a consistent manner by all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service district offices.
• Designating an area as a “critical habitat” only when it clearly and fully includes essential physical and biological features, the precise and scientifically sound definition of these features, and demonstrable evidence that occupation of currently unoccupied habitats is reasonably foreseeable.
• Greater and more meaningful consideration of local communities and affected industry in determining economic impacts associated with critical habitat designation.
• Establishing a standard to define the “best available” scientific data for all ESA determinations, which should be publicly available and peer reviewed.
• Disallowing speculative ESA litigation based on “possible” development that could result from a proposed transportation project.
• Reducing unnecessary delay in the ESA Section 7 consultation process by focusing on mitigation instead of avoidance (as in ESA Section 10). Mitigation allows for the flexibility necessary to balance species preservation with the overall improvements to communities resulting from transportation projects.
• Considering impacts (economic and otherwise) from the inability to build a project because of ESA considerations, as well as any equity issues when such a project is intended to benefit a disadvantaged community.
• Crediting material gathered during the informal ESA consultation process to the formal stage of the process. This reform would avoid both unnecessary delay and duplication of work.