Dusky gopher frog reaches Supreme Court

Tom Oates
30 August 2018
Front Ecol Environ, 16 (9): 377

The first case scheduled to be heard in the upcoming session of the US Supreme Court sets the Weyerhaeuser Company (Seattle, WA) against the US Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS's) critical habitat designation for the endangered dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa). The court identifies the questions as: “whether the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits designation of private land as unoccupied critical habitat that is neither habitat nor essential to species conservation”, and “whether an agency decision not to exclude an area from critical habitat because of the economic impact of designation is subject to judicial review”. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh could potentially tip the balance of the court, creating a tough environment for the ESA.
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Forest “resilience” and the farm bill

Tom Oates
1 August 2018
Front Ecol Environ, 16, (6): 313

On June 21, a 5-year farm bill passed the US House of Representatives with a narrow, partisan 213–211 margin. It incorporates much of the previously House-passed “Resilient Federal Forests Act”, encouraging aggressive forest thinning through salvage logging and eliminating review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), allowing “categorical exclusions” of areas as large as 30,000 acres.
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