Protecting animal and human habitats.

While Congress is seeking to protect property owners from the Endangered Species Act, the Supreme Court is protecting endangered species from private property owners.

The act, first passed in 1973, forbids anyone from taking an endangered or threatened species. It defines "take" as "harass, harm, pursue, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect." In 1975, the Secretary of the Interior issued a regulation stating that the act also outlaws habitat destruction.

Last year, a federal appeals court overturned that regulation, ruling that the law protects species but not necessarily their habitats. Organizations representing landowners, logging companies, and families dependent on the logging industry brought the case against the government.

On June 29, however, the Supreme Court upheld the 1975 regulation. The justices argued that the "dictionary definition" of harm "encompasses habitat modification that results in actual injury or death." They also cited previous Supreme Court decisions stating that Congress intended the law to halt the extinction of species, "whatever the cost."

The three dissenting judges argued that property owners required to protect species' habitats could face "financial ruin." To preserve the habitats of endangered animals, the act provides federal lands, as well as funds for acquiring private lands, they stated.

In April, Congress passed legislation forbidding the Fish and Wildlife Service from listing additional species as endangered or threatened until Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 1995. The House is now considering a bill that would extend that moratorium through fiscal 1996. The Senate may follow suit.

Members of both the House and the Senate plan to introduce legislation this month to reauthorize--and revamp--the Endangered Species Act. They intend to make the act kinder to property owners, congressional staff say.