Court Opinion

ID: 9485730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:28:17.904582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:19.368114
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in Section 11(A)(1) of the opinion:
I agree that the “harm” regulation, 50 CFR § 17.3, complies with the Endangered Species Act — but only because of the 1982 amendments to the ESA. See Pub.L. 97-
304, §§ 4(a)(2) and 6(1) (codified respectively at 16 U.S.C. §§ 1536(b)(4)(B) and 1539(a)(1)(B)). Those amendments, which authorize the FWS to issue permits for “any taking otherwise prohibited by section 1538(a)(1)(B) of this title if such taking is incidental to, and not the purpose of, the carrying out of an otherwise lawful activity,” 16 U.S.C. § 1539(a)(1)(B), support the inference that the ESA otherwise forbids some such incidental takings, including some habitat modification. But for the 1982 amendments, I would find Judge Sentelle’s analysis highly persuasive — including his discussion of the noscitur a sociis canon. See RLEA v. NMB, 988 F.2d 133, 144 (D.C.Cir.1993) (Williams, J., dissenting) (characterizing the canon as a “powerful linguistic norm”).