1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Home is Where the Habitat is: Supreme Court Addresses Critical Habitat under the Endangered Species Act December 19, 2018 On November 27, 2018, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that only “h
2、abitat” of an endangered species can be designated as “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). (Justice Kavanaugh did not participate in the decision.) The case, Weyerhauser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, involved the Fish and Wildlife Services (FWSs or Services) decisions
3、(1) to designate a 1,544-acre private property as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog, and (2) not to exclude the property from its critical habitat designation. The Court remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Fifth Circuit) to determine whether the
4、private property was “habitat” for the frog and if the FWS abused its discretion when it decided not to exclude the property from the critical habitat designation. Although the Supreme Court did not define “habitat” under the ESA, its ruling is significant because it clarifies that, in order to be d
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