Key Ruling Preserves U.S. Habitat Law

WASHINGTON —  In its most important environmental decision in nearly two decades, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the sweeping reach of the Endangered Species Act, ruling that federal officials can block development on private land in order to protect the habitat of animals and plants on the verge of extinction.

The 6-3 decision--which reversed an appeals court ruling in an Oregon dispute over the northern spotted owl--rejects timber industry claims that the 1973 law was intended merely to prohibit the killing of animals, not to shield their habitats.

Had the ruling gone the other way, bald eagles, spotted owls, salmon and other animals would be guarded only from direct harm, such as hunting and trapping, but not destruction of their breeding and feeding grounds.

The case was closely watched by environmentalists and landowners, and the impact of the decision reverberated from Southern California’s expensive coastal real estate to the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests to Florida’s salt marshes.

The ruling stands as the lone victory for Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and environmentalists since Republicans took control of Congress--but it is a critical one that resolves a longstanding controversy over the scope of federal efforts to safeguard almost 1,000 species.

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Nevertheless, all sides acknowledge that the environmentalists’ celebration could be short-lived.

From coast to coast, loggers, urban developers, farmers and other landowners--trying to end costly federal restrictions on use of their property--vowed Thursday to keep battling in Congress and in the courts, using other, constitutional grounds.

“If anything, this decision strengthens the hand of those who want to bring long-overdue reforms to the Endangered Species Act,” said Rep. Wes Cooley (R-Ore.). “Our priorities are way out of whack.”

“This decision,” said Bob L. Vice, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, “is the catalyst that will sweep needed reform to the forefront.”

To provide a safety net for animals and plants on the verge of disappearing, the Interior Department long has invoked the Endangered Species Act’s extraordinary power to block developers’ bulldozers, farmers’ plows and loggers’ chain saws. But its implementation is frequently slow and confusing, especially in the West, where it has polarized environmentalists and landowners.

In its decision, the high court referred to the pro-environment mind-set of Congress in the 1970s and early 1980s, and indicated that if a reversal of the 1973 law is warranted, it must come from Congress itself.

Speaking in the courtroom Thursday, Justice John Paul Stevens quoted former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was buried that same day. Burger wrote in 1978 that Congress, in drafting the law, intended “to halt and reverse the trend toward species extraction, whatever the cost.”

Congress “entrusted the [Interior] secretary with broad discretion” to protect endangered wildlife, Stevens wrote in the majority opinion. “We are especially reluctant to substitute our views . . . for this.”

Because most endangered and threatened animals and plants are found on private land, a National Academy of Scientists committee reported last month that destruction of their natural habitat is the primary danger they face.

“We have always known the Endangered Species Act was good science, the court has validated that it is good law as well,” said John McCaull of the National Audubon Society.

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said he believed that Congress had not intended to impose “unfairness to the point of financial ruin--not just upon the rich, but upon the simplest farmer.” Also dissenting were the court’s two other most conservative members, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

Many members of Congress agree and are attempting to revise portions of the act that involve private lands, a move that would render the court’s decision moot.

“Today’s decision will serve as a rallying cry for . . . reform from communities across the country that have been hurt by the current law,” said Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who has introduced a bill to eliminate most of the restrictions on private land.

The problem, he said, is not with the court’s interpretation of the law, but with the law itself. A House task force established to consider changes in the Endangered Species Act is drafting a bill similar to Gorton’s measure, with the debate on both proposals expected to begin in earnest next month.

But the movement to overhaul the nation’s premier conservation law, while backed by many influential business groups and small landowners, is divisive in Congress. Republicans do not all agree on how far reform should go, and they might not have enough votes to override a possible veto from President Clinton.

Gorton and other members of Congress have said that the provisions for private land should be made voluntary because the law now puts the rights of birds, bugs and plants over the rights of people and their jobs.

But others--including Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), who chairs the Senate’s environment panel--have said less sweeping changes would correct problems that have made the process so combative. Chafee has said he supports adding economic incentives to reward landowners who protect natural habitats, but he rejects efforts to weaken the law’s fundamental mandates.

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The court’s decision Thursday--and much of the congressional debate--focuses on an often-challenged definition of what it means to “take” a species. Congress originally defined it as “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect.”

Last year, the Interior Department’s longstanding rule on taking of species--including protection of habitat--was invalidated by the appeals court, which sided with the timber industry in saying that it was unreasonable and far beyond what Congress had intended.

But the high court rejected that stand and ruled that harm to a habitat--such as cutting down trees where a bird nests--constitutes harm to the species itself.

“To raze the last remaining ground on which [a species] currently breeds . . . would obviously injure the population [causing the species’ extinction in a generation],” wrote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Calling it a “common sense interpretation of the law followed by the Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations,” Babbitt said the Supreme Court decision enables his agency to keep negotiating conservation agreements with private landowners.

Babbitt said the lower court decision, if left intact, “would essentially have wiped out all the conservation partnerships” that his agency recently endorsed to try to defuse wars with landowners.

An example is a groundbreaking alliance between Orange, San Diego and Riverside county developers and Gov. Pete Wilson’s Administration to create preserves for the California gnatcatcher and other species in diminishing coastal sage scrub.

“It [the court decision] makes it all the more fundamentally important that we work to make this law more flexible and user-friendly for landowners,” Babbitt said.

Wilson’s resources secretary, Douglas P. Wheeler, agreed, saying the court decision “reaffirms the essential link” between the survival of species and the protection of their habitat.

James Geisinger, president of the Northwest Forest Assn., a timber industry group, called the ruling “a ludicrous interpretation” by the Supreme Court that “we believe Congress will remedy.”

The high court, in its last major ruling on the law in 1978, upheld a decision to block a large dam in Tennessee in order to protect the snail darter, a tiny endangered fish.

The law was amended four years later, putting in more flexibility, and the dam was eventually built.

Cone reported from Los Angeles and Savage from Washington. Times staff writer Melissa Healy in Washington also contributed to this story.