“Congress intended endangered species to be afforded the highest of priorities.” That 1978 Supreme Court decision in the notorious snail darter case stopped Tennessee’s $100 million Tellico Dam. Thereafter, the Endangered Species Act would trump all else. The ESA is not about plants and animals despite its name. It’s about habitat — that’s land and water, public or private. Harm habitat in your own backyard and under ESA’s Section 11(b) you could get a year in federal prison and a $50,000 fine for each violation. Big Green wasn’t so big in 1978, but enviro trial lawyers danced with glee when the Tellico decision showed them how to get big: Sue the government for failing to protect habitat, collect legal fees from the U.S. Treasury, and groom others to do the same.
One of those “others” was a little New Mexico outfit named the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity. It attracted a lot of foundation grooming from Pew, Rockefeller, and Tides money, sued its way to power, and morphed into the multimillion-dollar lawsuit factory, the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Tucson, Ariz.
