Sec. 3. Findings
210 words·~1 min read·
/bill/116/s/2343/is/section-3A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds that— the ESA was passed in 1973 as a means of protecting and recovering species and has not been substantially revised in over 25 years; the ESA has not achieved its stated goal of recovering threatened species or endangered species; of the species listed in accordance with the ESA, less than 1 percent of the total number of species in the United States have been recovered and removed from the list, largely due to data errors or other factors; there is— no comprehensive independent study of the costs or benefits of the ESA; no full accounting of how much the Federal Government and State and local governments spend to implement, enforce, and comply with the ESA; and no meaningful effort to account for the costs the ESA imposes on the private sector; the ESA effectively penalizes landowners for owning endangered species habitat by forcing them to bear the cost of conservation; the regulatory listing process under the ESA has become a tool for environmentalists to undermine, slow down, or halt construction of infrastructure projects, hampering economic growth and employment; and litigation stemming from the ESA and some resulting settlements between the litigants and the Federal Government have made the ESA even more unworkable, to the detriment of species.