Perhaps It Should Be Renamed The "Really, Really, Endangered Species Act" (Video)

Last Friday, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court decision ruling that the Fish & Wildlife Service decision that listing of the whitebark pine as endangered or threatened was "warranted, but precluded" was not arbitrary and capricious. The decision seems correct, but as the frustration of the Court reflects, it's only because the ESA is designed to fail.

The procedural history is lengthy and not really necessary to repeat here. Suffice it to say that the whitebark pine is both an important species and in significant distress, if not dire straits. In response to a listing petition, the FWS issued a finding that listing the whitebark pine is "warranted, but precluded." Thus, the FWS instead added the whitebark pine to the list of "candidate species."