Cengage Advantage Books: Foundations of the Legal Environment of Business 3rd Edition by Marianne Jennings

تمرين 15

Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon 515 U.S. 687 (1995)
Jobs versus Owls: Lumber versus Endangered Species
Facts
Two U.S. agencies halted logging in the Pacific Northwest because it endangered the habitat of the northern spotted owl and the red-cockaded woodpecker, both endangered species. Sweet Home Chapter (respondents) is a group of landowners, logging companies, and families dependent on the forest products industries in the Pacific Northwest. They brought suit, seeking clarification of the authority of the secretary of the interior and the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service (petitioners) to include habitation modification as a harm covered by the ESA.
The federal district court found for the secretary and director and held that they had the authority to protect the northern spotted owl through a halt to logging. The court of appeals reversed. Bruce Babbitt, the secretary of the interior, appealed.
Judicial Opinion
STEVENS, Justice
The Court of Appeals made three errors in asserting that "harm" must refer to a direct application of force because the words around it do. First, the court's premise was flawed. Several of the words that accompany "harm" in the § 3 definition of "take," especially "harass," "pursue," "wound," and "kill," refer to actions or effects that do not require direct applications of force. Second, to the extent the court read a requirement of intent or purpose into the words used to define "take," it ignored § 9's express provision that a "knowing" action is enough to violate the Act. Third, the court employed noscitur a sociis to give "harm" essentially the same function as other words in the definition, thereby denying it independent meaning. The canon, to the contrary, counsels that a word "gathers meaning from the words around it." The statutory context of "harm" suggests that Congress meant that term to serve a particular function in the ESA, consistent with but distinct from the functions of the other verbs used to define "take." The Secretary's interpretation of "harm" to include indirectly injuring endangered animals through habitat modification permissibly interprets "harm" to have "a character of its own not to be submerged by its association."
When it enacted the ESA, Congress delegated broad administrative and interpretive power to the Secretary. The task of defining and listing endangered and threatened species requires an expertise and attention to detail that exceeds the normal province of Congress. The proper interpretation of a term such as "harm" involves a complex policy choice. When Congress has entrusted the Secretary with broad discretion, we are especially reluctant to substitute our views of wise policy for his. In this case, that reluctance accords with our conclusion, based on the text, structure, and legislative history of the ESA, that the Secretary reasonably construed the intent of Congress when he defined "harm" to include "significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife."
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
Case Questions
1. Is habitat modification harming endangered species?
2. Is logging prevented now?
3. What ethical issues arise from this case?
Aftermath: In August 1995, Congress passed, as a rider to a budget-reduction bill, a provision that suspended environmental laws in some national forest areas in Washington and Oregon through 1996.
In Bennett v. Spear , 520 U.S. 154 (1997), the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the ESA as also permitting lawsuits by landowners affected by the statute's application. Landowners have equal rights along with environmental groups to challenge ESA applications and restrictions. However, in a 2009 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court limited somewhat the ability of individuals and groups to bring suit under the ESA. In Summers v. Earthland Institute , 555 U.S. 488 (2009), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the claim that the plaintiffs would be using various national parks around the country at some point in the future was not sufficient standing to bring suit to halt the U.S. Forest Service's policies and regulation on forest clearing. The decision means that those who bring such challenges must have an "active, ongoing dispute" that is specific to the activity. In addition, the species themselves cannot bring suit. In Cetacean Cmty. v. Bush , 386 F.3d 1169 (9th Cir. 2004), the court held that the Cetacean community, consisting of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, lacked standing to sue the federal government under the ESA in claiming that the Navy's proposed deployment of low frequency active sonar harmed them. The court held that the ESA authorizes only persons to sue.