Eugene H. Buck
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
M. Lynne Corn
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
Kristina Alexander
Legislative Attorney
Pervaze A. Sheikh
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
Robert Meltz
Legislative Attorney
The Endangered Species Act (ESA; P.L. 93-205, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1543) was enacted to increase protection for, and provide for the recovery of, vanishing wildlife and vegetation. Under ESA, species of plants and animals (both vertebrate and invertebrate) can be listed as endangered or threatened according to assessments of their risk of extinction. Habitat loss is the primary cause for listing species. Once a species is listed, powerful legal tools are available to aid its recovery and protect its habitat. Accordingly, when certain resources are associated with listed species—such as water in arid regions like California, old growth timber in national forests, or free-flowing rivers—ESA is seen as an obstacle to continued or greater human use of these resources. ESA may also be controversial because dwindling species are usually harbingers of broader ecosystem decline or conflicts. As a result, ESA is considered a primary driver of largescale ecosystem restoration issues.
The 112th Congress may conduct oversight of the implementation of various federal programs and laws that address threatened and endangered species. This could range from addressing listing and delisting decisions under ESA to justifying funding levels for international conservation programs. The 112th Congress may also face specific resource conflicts involving threatened and endangered species, including managing water supplies and ecosystem restoration in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers Delta in California (i.e., Bay-Delta) and managing water supplies in the Klamath Basin. In the 112th Congress, resource-specific issues may be addressed independently, whereas oversight on the implementation of ESA may be addressed in debates about particular species (e.g., wolves, polar bears, and salmon).
The 112th Congress may consider legislation related to global climate change that includes provisions that would allocate funds to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species program and/or to related funds to assist species adaptation to climate change. Other major issues concerning ESA in recent years have included the role of science in decision-making, critical habitat (CH) designation, incentives for property owners, and appropriate protection of listed species, among others.
The authorization for spending under ESA expired on October 1, 1992. The prohibitions and requirements of ESA remain in force, even in the absence of an authorization, and funds have been appropriated to implement the administrative provisions of ESA in each subsequent fiscal year. Proposals to reauthorize and extensively amend ESA were last considered in the 109th Congress, but none were enacted. No legislative proposals were introduced in the 110th or 111th Congresses to reauthorize ESA.
This report discusses oversight issues and legislation introduced in the 112th Congress to address ESA implementation and management of endangered and threatened species.
Date of Report: April 1, 2011
Number of Pages: 18
Order Number: R41608
Price: $29.95
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Eugene H. Buck
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
Harold F. Upton
Analyst in Natural Resources Policy
Peter Folger
Specialist in Energy and Natural Resources Policy
The massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, caused extensive damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power installation in northeastern Japan, resulting in the release of radiation. Concerns have arisen about the potential effects of this released radiation on U.S. marine environment and resources.
Both ocean currents and atmospheric winds have the potential to transport radiation over and into marine waters under U.S. jurisdiction. It is unknown whether marine organisms that take up radiation in Japanese waters may subsequently migrate to where they may be harvested by U.S. commercial fishermen.
High levels of radioactive iodine-131 (with a half-life of about 8 days), cesium-137 (with a halflife of about 30 years), and cesium-134 (with a half-life of about 2 years) have been measured in seawater adjacent to the Fukushima Daiichi site.
EPA rainfall monitors in California, Idaho, and Minnesota have detected trace amounts of radioactive iodine, cesium, and tellurium consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident, with current concentrations below any level of concern. It is uncertain how precipitation of radioactive elements from the atmosphere may affect radiation levels in the marine environment.
Scientists have stated that radiation in the ocean will very quickly become diluted and should not be a problem beyond the coast of Japan. The same is true of radiation carried by winds. Unless radioactivity from Fukushima finds its way directly to another part of the world through food or other commercial products, it should become sufficiently dispersed over time that it will not prove to be a serious health threat elsewhere.
Currently, it appears that radioactive contamination of seafood from the recent nuclear disaster in Japan is not a food safety problem for consumers in the United States. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the damage to infrastructure in Japan has limited food production and associated exports from areas near the Fukushima nuclear facility. Food products from the areas near the Fukushima nuclear facility, including seafood, are also to be tested by FDA before they can enter the U.S. food supply.
Date of Report: April 5, 2011
Number of Pages: 8
Order Number: R41751
Price: $19.95
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Kelsi Bracmort
Analyst in Agricultural Conservation and Natural Resources Policy
Congress has been increasingly interested in biopower—electricity generated from biomass. Biopower, a baseload power source, has the potential to strengthen rural economies, enhance energy security, and improve the environment, proponents say. Biopower could be produced from a large range of biomass feedstocks nationwide (e.g., urban, agricultural, and forestry wastes and residues). One challenge to biopower production is a readily available feedstock supply. At present, biopower requires tax incentives to be competitive with conventional fossil fuels.
Congressional support for biopower has aimed to promote energy security, and has generally assumed that biopower is carbon neutral. An energy production activity is typically classified as carbon neutral if it produces no net increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a life-cycle basis. The premise that biopower is carbon neutral has come under scrutiny as its potential to help meet U.S. energy demands and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions is more closely examined.
Whether biopower is carbon neutral depends on many factors, including the definition of carbon neutrality, the feedstock type, the technology used, and the time frame examined. Carbon flux (emission and sequestration) varies at each phase of the biopower pathway, given site- and operation-specific factors. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a common technique to calculate the environmental footprint, including the carbon flux, of a particular biopower pathway. However, past legislation has not required a standardized LCA.
Interest in the carbon classification of biopower is in part due to sustainability and air quality concerns. Where the feedstock supply for biopower originates, if it is managed in a sustainable manner, and whether the associated air quality impacts from biopower generation are tolerable are questions that are part of the biopower carbon-neutrality debate. Congress may decide whether the current carbon-neutral designation for biopower is accurate, or whether additional carbon accounting for biopower is warranted and what impact this accounting might have on renewable energy, agricultural, and environmental legislative goals.
Rulings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have raised questions about the carbon neutrality of biopower. For instance, the Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule did not exempt emissions from biomass combustion. Some view EPA’s decision as equating biomass emissions with fossil fuel emissions. State perspectives on the final rule are divided. Some states contend that treating biomass combustion the same as fossil fuel combustion will result in excessive permitting requirements and fees that jeopardize renewable energy development. Other states argue that not treating it the same will aggravate climate change over time. EPA proposes to defer for three years GHG permitting requirements for carbon dioxide emissions from bioenergy and other biogenic sources.
In addition, the June 2010 release of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy Study led to a noteworthy discussion in the media and the scientific community about biomass energy and its GHG impacts. The study centered on substituting forest biomass for fossil fuels in the Massachusetts energy sector. The study found that, using conventional combustion, more GHGs are emitted per unit of energy produced from forest biomass than from fossil fuels. The study’s assumptions and parameters, including the time frame necessary to pay off the carbon debt (i.e., the excess GHG emissions) and the single biomass feedstock, would need to be changed to have application to the national carbon-neutrality debate.
Date of Report: March 24, 2011
Number of Pages: 17
Order Number: R41603
Price: $29.95
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Kristina Alexander
Legislative Attorney
M. Lynne Corn
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy
After near eradication of the gray wolf from the lower 48 states in the first half of the 20th century, the wolf was on the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA’s) first list of endangered species, divided into two subspecies—the Eastern Timberwolf and the northern Rocky Mountain wolf. In 1978 the wolf was listed at the species level (the gray wolf) as endangered in all of the conterminous 48 states except Minnesota, where it was listed as threatened. With the exception of experimental populations established in the 1990s, in which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) reintroduced wolves to selected areas, protections for the gray wolf have diminished as wolf populations have increased in some areas—such as in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The use of distinct population segments (DPSs), a term created in the 1978 ESA amendments, has played a role in that reduced protection. DPSs allow vertebrate species to be divided into distinct groups, based on geography and genetic distinctions. This report analyzes the DPS designation process as it is applied to the gray wolf. It also examines experimental populations of wolves under the ESA.
Experimental populations (Ex Pops) of wolves were reintroduced in three regions in the United States in the 1990s: Central Idaho, Yellowstone, and Blue Range (in Arizona and New Mexico, known as Mexican gray wolves). The Ex Pops in Central Idaho and Yellowstone have grown to over 1,650 wolves as of December 31, 2010, while the Mexican gray wolf population has not surpassed 59 wolves, and as of January 2011 totaled 50.
ESA protection for wolf DPSs has changed back and forth since the first DPSs—Western, Eastern, and Southwestern—were proposed in 2003. Each effort by FWS to delist the wolf or designate a DPS has been rejected by a court. In 2003, FWS determined that because of the population size, the Western and Eastern DPSs no longer needed the protection of the ESA and so those DPSs were downlisted from endangered to threatened. Courts nullified the rulemaking. In 2007, FWS designated and delisted the Western Great Lakes DPS, and in early 2008, FWS designated and delisted the Northern Rocky Mountain DPS. However, courts found both delistings flawed and vacated both rulemakings. In April 2009, FWS again established DPSs in the Western Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies and delisted both populations except for in Wyoming. FWS settled the suit regarding the Western Great Lakes delisting, returning the population to its previous status (threatened and endangered). In August 2010, a court ruled that the Northern Rockies delisting violated the ESA, directing that the delisting be declared invalid. The Northern Rockies wolves were returned to their experimental population status, meaning they are treated as threatened in most circumstances but are endangered outside of the Ex Pop boundaries.
A March 2011 settlement agreement would end lawsuits by the participating plaintiffs about Northern Rocky Mountains DPSs for at least five years, but it depends on the court taking a procedural step first. FWS agreed to issue a new rule designating a DPS in the area and delisting those wolves. In the meantime, Montana and Idaho would manage their wolves, while wolves in Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, and Utah would remain under federal protection.
The 112th Congress is considering legislation to eliminate all protections of the gray wolf under the ESA (H.R. 509—Rehberg; S. 249—Hatch), to let states decide how to protect wolves found in Idaho and Montana (H.R. 510—Rehberg), to direct FWS to reissue the regulatory delisting of April 2009, making the rule immune from judicial review (H.R. 1, § 1713—Simpson; Senate version § 1709—Tester), or to make that regulatory delisting law (S. 321—Baucus). If passed, a delisting bill appears to be the first law to delist a species under the ESA.
Date of Report: March 23, 2011
Number of Pages: 24
Order Number: RL34238
Price: $29.95
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Kristina Alexander
Legislative Attorney
The wolf had all but disappeared from the lower 48 states when the Endangered Species Act (ESA) put it on its first list of protected species in 1973. Since then, the wolf has held every status of protection under the ESA at one time or another, in one place or another. Regulatory efforts have switched from increasing protections of the wolf—culminating in the reintroduction of wolves into three parts of the American West in the 1990s—to reducing protection of the wolf where its population has surged. Litigation has marked each step of the way. Where litigation and regulation have not succeeded, legislation has been tried.
This report is a companion report to CRS Report RL34238, Gray Wolves Under the Endangered Species Act: Distinct Population Segments and Experimental Populations. It is intended to provide a brief history of the laws, regulations, and lawsuits related to the wolf’s protected status. Fuller analyses of the concepts discussed in this report can be found in that longer report.
Date of Report: March 28, 2011
Number of Pages: 12
Order Number: R41730
Price: $29.95
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