Court Opinion

ID: 9485729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:28:17.901795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:19.366803
License: Public Domain

MIKVA, Chief Judge,
concurring in Section 11(A)(1) of the opinion:
I write separately in order to articulate fully my reasons for rejecting appellants’ argument that we should set aside the “harm” regulation as violative of the ESA.
When we review an agency’s construction of a statute that it is entrusted to administer, we follow the deferential approach set out by Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). “If the statute is clear and unambiguous that is the end of the matter, for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281, 291, 108 S.Ct. 1811, 1817, 100 L.Ed.2d 313 (1988) (citations omitted). If, however, “the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.” Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843, 104 S.Ct. at 2782. “In such a case, a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency.” Id. at 844, 108 S.Ct. at 2782.
Appellants contend that Congress clearly intended to exclude habitat modification from the types of takings prohibited by the ESA and that this Court thus owes no deference to the FWS “harm” regulation. I disagree. In my view, the “harm” regulation conflicts with neither the ESA itself nor its ambiguous legislative history and is unquestionably a permissible and reasonable construction of the statute. I therefore do not accept appellants’ claim that 50 C.F.R. § 17.3 transgresses the ESA.
It is hard to construct a legislative scenario in which Congress would have avoided the problem of habitat modification when it crafted the ESA. The drafters of the statute realized that the degradation of habitats posed one of the gravest threats to the continued existence of endangered and threatened species. As the Supreme Court has noted:
In shaping [the ESA], Congress started from the finding that “[t]he two major causes of extinction are hunting and destruction of natural habitat.” S.Rep. No. 93-307, p. 2 (1973). Of these twin threats, Congress was informed that the greatest was destruction of natural habitats....
TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 179, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2294, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978). Indeed, the first stated purpose of the ESA is “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved....” 16 U.S.C. § 1531(b).
Appellants acknowledge that Congress intended to halt injurious habitat modification *9when it passed the ESA. They contend only that Congress did not mean to combat habitat degradation on private lands through the prohibition against takings in 16 U.S.C. § 1538. They argue that Congress intended to combat this problem solely through § 1534’s provision for federal land acquisition.
According to appellants, the legislative history of the “take” provision establishes that Congress did not mean for that term to encompass habitat modification. They note that the original bill that was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, S. 1983, defined “take” to include “destruction, modification, or curtailment of [an endangered species’] habitat or range.” S. 1983, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., § 3(6) (1973). The bill reported out of committee, however, did not refer to habitat modification in the definition of “take.” This omission, appellants argue, evinces Congress’ intent not to include habitat modification within the scope of prohibited “takings.”
Appellants maintain that Congress intended instead to address the problem of habitat modification caused by private actions on private lands exclusively through land acquisition by the federal government. Section 1534 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior, as well as the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to the National Forest System, to acquire land as part of “a program to conserve fish, wildlife, and plants, including those which are listed as endangered species or threatened species_” 16 U.S.C. § 1534(a). Appellants point to various statements in the legislative history that suggest that some members of Congress may have wanted land acquisition, not the prohibition of land uses, to be the ESA’s sole weapon against habitat modification on private lands. Appellants further argue that Congress logically must have intended land acquisition to be the exclusive mechanism for preventing such habitat modification. Otherwise, they contend, agency officials would always choose the free alternative of prohibiting a damaging land use under the “take” provision, rather than paying to acquire the affected land.
I find the legislative history to be most ambiguous regarding whether Congress intended to include habitat modification within the meaning of “take.” It is true that the Senate Committee chose not to use the S. 1983 definition of “take,” which specifically encompassed habitat modification. Instead, the Committee adopted a definition from the other bill under consideration, S. 1592, which did not explicitly include habitat modification. But as the district court noted, there is no indication in the legislative history as to why the Committee selected one definition over the other.
There is nothing to suggest that Congress chose the definition it did in order to exclude habitat modification. The Committee may have rejected the S.1983 definition only because it apparently would have made habitat modification a per se violation of the ESA. It is certainly possible that the Committee did not intend to foreclose an administrative regulation prohibiting habitat modification- — - so long as that prohibition was accompanied by limitations, such as those contained in the FWS regulation under review, requiring that there be actual injury or death to the species. In any case, Congress manifested no clear intent to exclude habitat modification from the “take” definition. Indeed, the Senate Committee Report states that “ ‘Take’ is defined ... in the broadest possible manner to include every conceivable way in which a person can ‘take’ or attempt to ‘take’ any fish or wildlife.” S.Rep. No. 93-307, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 7 (1973), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1973, 2995.
Appellants’ contention that Congress intended land acquisition to be the exclusive instrument for curbing habitat modification on private lands is similarly speculative. Nothing in the language of 16 U.S.C. § 1534 or in the legislative history establishes that Congress meant land acquisition to be the only mechanism for habitat protection on private lands. The only evidence appellants can garner in support of their assertion to the contrary is a few isolated and ambiguous remarks by members of Congress on the floor. See 119 Cong.Rec. 25,669 (1973) (statement of Sen. Tunney); 119 Cong.Rec. 30,162 (1973) (statement of Rep. Sullivan); 119 Cong.Rec. 25,691 (1973) (statement of Sen. Nelson). The general rule is that “de*10bates in Congress expressive of the views and motives of individual members are not a safe guide ... in ascertaining the meaning and purpose of the law-making body.” Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443, 474, 41 S.Ct. 172, 179, 65 L.Ed. 349 (1921). In any ease, these statements do not establish that even the speakers themselves intended land acquisition to be the exclusive protective mechanism for habitats on private lands.
There is also little force behind appellants’ claim that including habitat modification within the meaning of “take” renders the land acquisition provision of § 1534 a nullity. Appellants suggest that agency officials will not pay to acquire land if they can accomplish the same habitat preservation objective without cost by banning the offending land use. But there are in fact many reasons why, in its effort to protect endangered and threatened species, the government might choose to acquire land rather than simply forbid damaging activity. Federal wildlife managers can surely do more to help such species on government-owned and controlled preserves than they could ever accomplish on private lands. Indeed, § 1534 land acquisition is explicitly designed to facilitate “conservation programs,” a phrase that suggests a type of intervention more complex and proactive than simply forbidding certain activities on private lands. -
Appellants argue that the agency must interpret the word “harm” narrowly so as not to include habitat modification because none of the other “take” terms — “harass, ... pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, [and] collect” — represents a land use action that injures wildlife only indirectly. They argue that under the principle of statutory construction known as noscitur a sociis, a general term in a list should be interpreted narrowly “to avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress.” Jarecki v. G.D. Searle & Co., 367 U.S. 303, 307, 81 S.Ct. 1579, 1582, 6 L.Ed.2d 859 (1961).
Despite appellants’ suggestions, however, the other prohibitions can limit a private landowner’s use of his land in a rather broad manner. In particular, the prohibition against “harassment” can be used to suppress activities that are in no way intended to injure an endangered species. The House Report stated:
[Take] includes harassment, whether intentional or not. This would allow, for example, the Secretary to regulate or prohibit the activities of birdwatchers where the effect of those activities might disturb the birds and make it difficult for them to hatch or raise their young.
H.R.Rep. No. 93-412, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 11 (1973). Indeed, the FWS has defined “harass” in a way that is almost as broad as the “harm” definition:
Harass in the definition of “take” in the Act means an intentional or negligent act or omission which creates the likelihood of injury to wildlife by annoying it to such an extent as to significantly disrupt normal behavioral patterns which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.
50 C.F.R. § 17.3. Appellants have not challenged this definition.
Noscitur a sociis means, literally, that a word is known by the company it keeps. Jarecki, 367 U.S. at 307, 81 S.Ct. at 1582. In the definition of “take,” the term “harm” is accompanied by an assortment of words ranging from the precise and narrow “shoot” to the vague and expansive “harass.” Consequently, even if I were willing to find an agency’s construction of a statute to be impermissible based solely on a seldom-used and indeterminate principle of statutory construction, I would not do so in the present case.
Although the ESA is generally ambiguous as to whether the “take” prohibition forbids habitat modification, there is at least one feature of the statute that strongly suggests that Congress did in fact intend to include habitat modification within the meaning of “take.” In 1982, Congress amended the ESA to include a provision authorizing the FWS to issue a permit allowing “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).
*11By allowing the agency, at its discretion, to permit “incidental takings,” Congress implicitly confirmed that incidental takings were otherwise forbidden by the Act. And it is hard to imagine what “incidental takings” might be other than habitat modification. Indeed, the legislative history of the 1982 amendments reveals that habitat modification was precisely what Congress had in mind. The House Report states, “This provision is modeled after a habitat conservation plan that has been developed by three Northern California cities_ [It] will ... provide the institutional framework to permit cooperation between the public and private sectors in the interest of endangered species and habitat conservation.” H.R.Rep. No. 97-835, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 30-31 (1982), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, pp. 2807, 2871, 2872.
Overall, there is nothing in the ESA itself or in its legislative history that unambiguously demonstrates that the term “take” does not encompass habitat modification. Indeed, as I noted in my discussion of the 1982 amendments, there is evidence to the contrary. Chevron commands that unless it is absolutely clear that an agency’s interpretation of a statute, entrusted to it to administer, is contrary to the will of Congress, courts must defer .to that interpretation so long as it is reasonable. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 844, 104 S.Ct. at 2782.
In upholding the challenged regulation, we join the Ninth Circuit, which has similarly held that the agency’s inclusion of habitat destruction in the definition of “harm” is a permissible interpretation of the ESA. That Circuit has stated that “[t]he Secretary’s inclusion of habitat destruction that could result in extinction follows the plain language of the statute because it serves the overall purpose of the Act_” Palila v. Hawaii Dep’t of Land and Natural Resources, 852 F.2d 1106, 1108 (9th Cir.1988).