NAHB
The NAHB today filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of two NAHB members contesting a provision of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that would result in $34 million in lost property value to protect an animal that doesn’t even live there.
In 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 1,555 acres of private land in Louisiana as unoccupied “critical habitat” for the endangered dusky gopher frog. The agency designated the forested land based on pure speculation, hoping that the property would someday be managed by private landowners for the species’ conservation.
However, the only way to make the land suitable to the frog’s habitat is through controlled burns and re-vegetation — something the agency cannot mandate on privately held land.
