I blame sweet home v babbitt. The ESA says its unlawful to take a protected species. Take is defined in the ESA as hunting/killing/trapping. The Court decided that despite the context "take" also meant cutting down trees or developing land where protected species could hypothetically live even if the development does not harm a single protected animal. That is a significant reinterpretation and has been used as a tactic by greens to shut down development. With citizen enforcement suits, mandatory response times by the feds, NEPA, and the EATJA the ESA is being abused. Whether its the Texas dune sand lizard, the gopher frog or the delhi sands fly, the ESA is becoming nothing more than a limitation on development as opposed to a protector of animals actually at risk of going extinct.
Wouldn't the solution be legislation clarifying the issues you describe rather than scrapping the law wholesale?
