| Late last year, the Home Builders Association of Kitsap County filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. This action challenged the excessive and unlawful designation of critical habitat for West Coast salmon and steelhead species under the Endangered Species Act.
Not only are these areas designated as critical habitat by NMFS excessive and unduly vague, they are not justified as essential to conserve the listed species and are not based upon the legally required analysis of economic impacts.
We now learn that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down a federal critical habitat designation for another endangered species because the government failed to conduct the required economic analysis for critical habitat designation in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
The two cases bear a striking similarity.
So what does this mean to the citizens of Kitsap County? The translation is that our locally elected officials and government regulators need to take a cautious approach in the ongoing negotiations with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The imminent risk is that the so-called baseline scientific assumptions being set forth by the federal government may be legally overturned as in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
The irony lies in the fact that the entity pledged to uphold the federal law could very well turn out to be the culprit that violates the same.
Alan Martin
Government Affairs Director
Homebuilders Association of Kitsap County
Bremerton. | 