Passed in 1973 and signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a bulwark against unchecked deforestation and development for more than 50 years. The act has protected and restored 1,700 species that were on the brink of extinction but have since returned to viable populations. Author Lowell Bayer was a young lawyer in Washington, DC, when the act was passed, and has worked at the forefront of environmental law for 60 years, including leading the first Bush administration’s environmental policy in 1989. Listen in to this important debate and learn from Lowell’s comprehensive two-volume history of the ESA, The Law of the Endangered Species Act, and his recently published book, Earth’s Emergency Room: Saving Species as the Planet and Politics Heat Up.
Lowell describes the act’s origins in the Green Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s and its revival during the Clinton Administration, which made the ESA more effective and responsive to climate change. Conflict-free conservationis currently working to pass new legislation in Washington. Reviving America’s Wildlife Lawsand expand funding to support state and federal species recovery programs—Lowell Beyer’s book Amazon and Powell’s Books.
