Exploring opposition to the Endangered Species Act

Recent proposals to change federal legislation and administrative policy regarding threatened and endangered species in the U.S. aim to significantly alter the process for listing species under the Endangered Species Act... [ view full abstract ]

Recent proposals to change federal legislation and administrative policy regarding threatened and endangered species in the U.S. aim to significantly alter the process for listing species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These proposals are in contrast to strong, consistent, and bipartisan support for the ESA among the U.S. public, which begs the question, from where do proposals to limit the federal government’s ability to effectively protect endangered species emanate? We address this question using a survey of adult U.S. residents conducted in 2014. We used logistic regression to determine which groups are supportive of changes to the ESA and which groups may be driving policy change. Similar to previous studies and recent polls, we found the majority of Americans support the ESA. In total, we found 33.5% somewhat and 45% strongly supported the ESA, while only 5.3% somewhat and 3.3% strongly opposed the ESA Individuals strongly identifying as property rights advocates had much lower odds (more than 500% lower than non-property rights advocates) of supporting the ESA. Respondents weakly identifying as hunters had much higher odds of supporting the ESA—about 150% higher than respondents strongly identifying as hunters. The odds for lower income respondents to support the ESA were about 80% higher than economic elites, but were 53% lower than middle income respondents, indicating middle income respondents had the highest odds of supporting the ESA. Our findings suggest that hunters and private property rights advocates, as well as economic elites, are significantly less supportive of the ESA than environmentalists or mid-income level respondents. One explanation for the lack of comprehensive ESA reform may be simply that hunters and private property advocates have not been able to create and mobilize cohesive advocacy coalitions that could shape the policy agenda in their favor.