By Jonathan Adler PERC Senior Fellow At a congressional hearing last week, Assistant U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Gary Frazer said that the Interior Department's Office of Science Integrity would conduct an independent evaluation of the work of FWS biologists accused by a federal judge of being dishonest with the court and acting in "bad faith." As the Los Angeles Times reports, Frazer said the FWS stands behind the work of its scientists but the Department will seek an independent assessment from outside experts nonetheless. Frazer's comments were delivered at a House Science Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on "The Endangered Species Act: Reviewing the Nexus of Science and Policy" at which I was also a witness.

By Jonathan Adler Professor and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted with much fanfare and little controversy in 1973. At the time, few anticipated how broadly the law would affect both government and private activities.1 Yet ever since its celebrated passage, the nation's premier wildlife conservation law has been a source of conflict and controversy; it has been rightly described as "one of the most contentious of our federal environmental laws."2 The ESA is a focus of controversy in part because of its strength.

A new book from Resources For the Future Press features a chapter by PERC scholars Terry Anderson and Reed Watson. The Endangered Species Act and Federalism, edited by Buzz Thompson and Kaush Arha, explores the role of states and local governments in protecting biodiversity in the United States. Anderson and Watson's chapter, "An Economic Perspective on Environmental Federalism: The Optimal Locus of Endangered Species Authority," provides an economic assessment of environmental federalism, focusing on the transaction costs of species management at various levels of government authority.

[percshare] By Michael 't-Sas Rolfes In 1900, the southern white rhinoceros was the most endangered of the five rhinoceros species. Less than 20 rhinos remained in a single reserve in South Africa. By 2010, white rhino numbers had climbed to more than 20,000, making it the most common rhino species on the planet. Saving the white rhino from extinction can be attributed to a change in policy that allowed private ownership of wildlife.