Articles

Asking the Supreme Court to bring economic sanity into the Endangered Species Act

November 01, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff On Friday, Pacific Legal Foundation filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, on behalf of several home building and agricultural groups, asking the high court to review the Ninth Circuit's deision in Home Builders Association of Northern California v. United States Fish &# ...

Articles

The polar bear economic farce

November 24, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final critical habitat designation for the polar bear.  The designation covers over 180,000 square miles.  Yet the Service estimates that the economic impact of the designation, over a 29-year period, will amount to less than $700,000 total, or just $54,00 ...

Articles

There's something fishy with the government's economic analysis

January 20, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff An important issue now pending for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court is how the Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to assess the economic impacts of critical habitat designation under the Endangered Species Act.  That issue is raised in two petitions, one brought by the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, ...

Articles

Forty years of the Endangered Species Act : a time for reflection

April 11, 2013 | By JAMES BURLING

I published this op-ed in the Visalia-Times Delta this morning.  Here’s a snippet: Enacted in 1973 under President Richard Nixon, the ESA authorizes federal officials to identify “endangered” and “threatened” species, and foster recovery through regulation. In one respect — the economic impact — the results are ea ...

Articles

Review denied in green sturgeon case

October 12, 2016 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Yesterday, we received the disappointing news that the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Building Industry Association of the Bay Area v. United States Department of Commerce. Our petition asked the High Court to accept the case in order to decide the question of whether an agency dec ...

Articles

Score one for “reasonable” application of tort liability

January 27, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

When Alan Petrie was assaulted and robbed in a Houston apartment complex visitors’ parking lot at 2:00 a.m., he sued the apartment management companies for their failure to protect him. The trial court rejected his lawsuit on the grounds that the management companies owed no duty to protect him from the criminal acts of third … ...