Just a thought.
Last I heard, it already has, 2 or 3 years ago and still hasn't been re-authorized. I could be wrong, like the one time when I thought I was wrong.(grin)
It doesn't sunset, and it derives its authority by treaty. There is one MAJOR change that can be made that would make a great deal of difference.
From Natural Process, pp377-80:
[Snip] Proponents for such multilateral treaties claim that they supercede the Constitution, per Article VI, Clause 2:The Endangered Species Act (ESA), Title 16, Chapter 31, Subchapter II Section 1533 of the U.S. Code, assigns responsibility for enacting rules and regulations to the Secretary of the Interior (or the Secretary of Commerce). The text reads,
"Whenever any species is listed as a threatened species pursuant to subsection (d) of this section, the Secretary shall issue such regulations as he deems necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of such species."
The delegated powers in this law are so broad that the rule-makers and regulators have the effective power to make law. They define illegal behavior, redefine the burden of proof, set penalties, provide enforcement personnel, and administer punishments, effectively combining all three (supposedly) separate and co-equal branches of government into one. The U.S. Constitution prohibits assignment of legislative authority by the Congress to the Executive Branch under both the Enumerated Powers Principle and the Separation of Powers Principle. Consolidation of legislative power into administrative government is clearly unconstitutional in practice, even if there are tenuous threads of authority that lend them supposed legitimacy. How do they get away with it?
The Endangered Species Act supposedly derives its authority to take private property from multilateral treaties, principally the Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, that entered into force on May 1, 1942, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that entered into force on November 1, 1983 and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) 1 November 1983.
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
This claim of treaty authorization ignores the facts that treaties are authorized UNDER the Constitution. Therefore, any treaty that violated it would be void, because:
1. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence acknowledge property rights as unalienable and stated that the purpose of government is to secure those rights.
2. The officers who negotiate and ratify treaties take an oath to abide by the Constitution. They do not have the legal authority to negotiate, ratify, or enforce an illegal document.
Supreme Court decisions have prohibited treaties that violate Constitutional provisions because government lacks the authority to conclude an agreement that violates Constitutional rights.
The Constitution specifies treaties concluded among sovereign nations. It is not possible to conclude a treaty with an unspecified composition of governments capable of post facto reservations or changes in scope and application. Post facto changes are effectively changes in the terms of the treaty after ratification. Suits in Federal Court to extend the scope and application of the ESA citing the an extended interpretation of a treaty are in violation of the 11th Amendment that prohibits extending any suit by or for a foreign power, to any of the United States.
The connection between the ESA and its authority in CITES has even less in common with its practical administration or the purpose of the treaty, as ratified by the Senate. The current thread of "logic" is that economic uses of land that alter habitat are equivalent to trading in endangered species. This assertion may be technically attributable to economic theory, however, to believe that this was intended by those who ratified CITES is dubious.
The ESA specifically prohibits any "take" of endangered species as follows in USC 1532:
(19) The term "'take" means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.
CITES was sold as a means to protect endangered species by outlawing trade in animal commodities such as ivory. (The theory underlying CITES has been completely discredited in practice. The black market nearly destroyed these animals in Africa. As it turns out, the best way to assure protection in perpetuity is private management, because the owners of the animals have reason to protect them to maintain future cash flow.)
There is no authority to take the use of land in this definition because there is no definition of "take" in the CITES at all. The UN has such a definition in the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Article 1, Chapter 1 that reads:
i) "Taking" means taking, hunting, fishing capturing, harassing, deliberate killing, or attempting to engage in any such conduct;
Note that the CMS definition (including recursive elements) does not include the term "harm." We did this to ourselves, folks. This is a provision of the ESA that could be reformed by Congress as is the scope of powers illegally assigned to the "Secretary" (the rest may require the Supreme Court). There is no basis in treaty law that allows an attribution of "harm" as a basis for taking private property, let alone the potential for harm. If the customary application of the ESA is to control the use of private property in the interest of the enforcing agency instead of species protection, then the ESA is clearly unconstitutional in practice and destructive to its purported intent. There I go again.