Habitat Federalism

THE COMMON IMAGE OF COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM INVOLVES the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inducing states to adopt permit and other pollution abatement programs. States can tailor some standards, but public health benchmarks and end-of-the-pipe technologies are uniform across the nation. Inducements include both carrots, mostly in the form of federal funds and flexibility, and sticks, mostly in the form of penalties and loss of control. This essay discusses cooperative federalism for habitat conservation. Habitat federalism focuses more on ecology than chemistry, more on cities and counties than states, and more on place-based variation than on uniform standards. It is about how land use control relates to federal natural resources law, especially the Endangered Species Act (ESA)