The Science Charade in Species Conservation

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is among the nation’s most important and powerful environmental laws. It is also a source of great conflict and controversy.  The listing of individual species, the designation of critical habitat and the implementation of conservation measures often prompt fierce legal and political battles. In these conflicts, activists on all sides claim that “sound science” supports their respective positions, and scoff at the “junk science” relied upon by the other side. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service fails to rely upon the best science, critics claim.  If it did, they charge, it would adopt policies more to their liking. 

The debate over the use of science under the ESA is part of the “science charade” that clouds substantive policy debate about species conservation.3 What typically divides competing interest groups is not a devotion to science, but sharply divergent policy preferences dressed up in scientific garb. The political debate over the use of science under the ESA tends to obscure the dividing line between science and policy and undermines the development of more effective and equitable conservation strategies. Further, efforts to reform the ESA by mandating additional scientific procedures or increasing judicial scrutiny of the use of science by federal agencies will do little to address the ESA’s underlying problems or make species conservation efforts more effective. 

Scientific research is necessary to inform species conservation decisions. But species conservation is not – and cannot be – a wholly scientific exercise. Judgments about what constitutes a distinct species or how to evaluate incomplete scientific data necessarily draw upon normative premises. More significantly, policy decisions about what sorts of conservation measures should be adopted are not scientific at all. Whether habitat loss will reduce the likelihood that a given species or population will survive in the wild may be a scientific question, but what measures should be adopted to conserve such habitat, and at what cost, is a normative policy judgment. Science can – indeed, must – inform such inquiries, but science cannot tell us what to do. Engaging in the “science charade,” either by pretending that ESA implementation may be guided by scientific judgment alone or by claiming that reforms of how science is used is unlikely to improve species conservation. To the contrary, efforts to constrain or control the use of science in ESA listing decisions or enhance judicial review of agency scientific determinations will undermine the quality and reliability of ESA science and lead to less effective conservation policy. 

Whatever ails the ESA, a failure to incorporate adequate science is not the cause of the disease. As this Article explains, efforts to augment the amount or type of science used in ESA decision-making, whether through additional procedural mandates or altered standards of judicial review, will not address the conflicts that afflict species conservation policy. In some cases, such measures could further undermine the ESA’s ability to conserve species. 

Part I of the Article gives a brief overview of the ESA, its operation, and the scientific requirements written into the Act. Part II describes the “science charade,” through which policymakers and others pretend that policy judgments are purely scientific questions, and the legal and political incentives that ensure this artifice persists. Part III details how the ESA’s structure generates political pressure on the use of science and encourages the science charade in species conservation. Part IV explains why various “sound science” reforms will not address these problems, and Part V outlines alternative policy reforms.