Endangered Species Act of 1973

Endangered Species Act of 1973

Other short titles	Endangered Species Act of 1973
Long title	An Act to provide for the conservation of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	ESA
Nicknames	Endangered Species Conservation Act
Enacted by	the 93rd United States Congress
Effective	December 27, 1973
Citations
Public law	93–205
Statutes at Large	87 Stat. 884
Codification
Titles amended	16 U.S.C.: Conservation
U.S.C. sections created	16 U.S.C. ch. 35 §§ 1531-1544.
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 1983 by Harrison A. Williams (D–NJ) on June 12, 1973 Committee consideration by Senate Commerce Committee Passed the Senate on July 24, 1973 (92–0) Passed the House on September 18, 1973 (390–12, in lieu of H.R. 37) Reported by the joint conference committee on December 19, 1973; agreed to by the Senate on December 19, 1973 (agreed) and by the House on December 20, 1973 (355–4) Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973
Major amendments
Pub. L. 95–632, 92 Stat. 3751, enacted November 10, 1978 Pub. L. 96–159, 93 Stat. 1225, enacted December 28, 1979 Pub. L. 97–304, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
United States Supreme Court cases
List Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978) Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, 515 U.S. 687 (1995) Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997) National Ass'n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644 (2007) Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, No. 17-71, 586 U.S. ___ (2018) United States Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, No. 19-547, 592 U.S. ___ (2021)

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting and conserving imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation", the ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. The Supreme Court of the United States described it as "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation".^[1] The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species to the point where the law's protections are not needed. It therefore "protect[s] species and the ecosystems upon which they depend" through different mechanisms. For example, section 4 requires the agencies overseeing the Act to designate imperiled species as threatened or endangered. Section 9 prohibits unlawful 'take,' of such species, which means to "harass, harm, hunt..." Section 7 directs federal agencies to use their authorities to help conserve listed species. The Act also serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).^[2]

In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, the Supreme Court found that "the plain intent of Congress in enacting" the ESA "was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost."^[1] The Act is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).^[3] FWS and NMFS have been delegated by the Act with the authority to promulgate any rules and guidelines within the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to implement its provisions.