Salem Press

	Recommended along with its companions, The Fifties in America and The Sixties in America.
Booklist

	This title is a well-written, well-organized, and thorough resource on this most transitional of decades in American history. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.

Choice

	This browsable set... is probably best suited for high school and public libraries, academic libraries may consider it as a companion to the recent scholarly studies.

Library Journal

	Historians and political science majors, undergraduate, and graduate students will find this work useful. The Seventies in America is recommended for all academic libraries.

ARBA

The Seventies in America
Endangered Species Act of 1973

Identification: Legislative response to human-influenced species extinction
Date: Signed into law on December 28, 1973

Bolstered by the growing environmental movement in the United States, political efforts to protect species in danger of extinction were rewarded with the passage of one of the most visible and strictest environmental laws in the world.

Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) march in Washington, D.C., in 1977 with a banner displaying the words of the amendment. (Library of Congress)

The U.S. Congress passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 in response to the recognition that human activities were threatening to push a growing number of plant and animal species into extinction. Reflecting the strong environmental feelings of the early 1970's, the act was passed by Congress with overwhelming majorities. In the House of Representatives, the vote in favor of the bill was 390-12; in the Senate, it was 92-0.

The act takes a species approach to the problem, creating a defined list of plants and animals that are protected. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is authorized to identify and list marine species, while the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) lists all nonmarine species. Once listed, a species cannot be hunted, killed, or collected. Species are considered either endangered--meaning they are likely to become extinct--or threatened--meaning they are likely to become endangered. Only biological facts, and not the possible economic impacts, are considered when listing a species. Between 1973 and 1980, the number of listed species grew from 119 to 268.

The act quickly proved controversial. The first of many high-profile incidents was the snail darter-Tellico Dam controversy that erupted in 1975. Opponents of a dam being built on the Little Tennessee River near Knoxville, Tennessee, sought to halt completion of the project. They argued that the dam would harm critical habitat for the snail darter, a small minnow listed as endangered. When the snail darter presence was identified, the dam project was entering its eighth year, with a total expenditure of nearly fifty million dollars. The legal battle carried all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled to stop construction. However, Congress responded by passing an exemption to the act that allowed the dam to be completed. The snail darters were trapped and transported to a nearby stream, where they continued to survive.

Impact
Dramatic confrontations such as Tellico Dam were rare during this period but tended to create an impression that the Endangered Species Act was a significant barrier to economic development. The law also had an impact on private landowners when endangered animal species used their land, although endangered plants on private land were not protected. Under the tenets of the law, landowners cannot take actions that would harm endangered animals on their property. For example, timberland owners whose trees provide habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers cannot harvest the trees. Excluding the economic impact of listing made the Endangered Species Act a political battleground in later decades, but the law enjoyed tremendous popular support throughout the 1970's.

Subsequent Events
By 2004, there were 1,265 listed species. Roughly one-third of listed species were animals, and two-thirds were plants. The NMFS or the FWS was required to prepare a recovery plan targeted to the habitat needs of each listed species. However, funding difficulties have slowed the development of the recovery plans, so only about one-half of the species have plans.

Further Reading
DiSilvestro, Roger. The Endangered Kingdom. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1989.
Norton, Bryan. The Preservation of Species. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Allan Jenkins

See Also
Air pollution; Clean Air Act of 1970; Congress, U.S.; Environmental movement; Environmental Protection Agency; Noise Control Act of 1972; Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974; Water pollution.