Professor Frank Comments on Ninth Circuit Endangered Species Act Ruling for Daily Journal, Greenwire

Professor of Environmental Practice Richard Frank commented for the Daily Journal and Greenwire on the recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling requiring government agencies to consider the impacts on endangered species in granting mining permits.  The en banc ruling in Karuk Tribe of California v. U.S. Forest Service overturned a three-judge panel decision and required Forest Service officials to investigate the potential impacts of gold mining on the Klamath River on protected coho salmon before issuing permits.

"The problems with these mining applications is that for many river systems and that critical habitat they provide is it's death by a thousand cuts," Frank told the Daily Journal, calling the majority opinion "sound and solid."

Commenting for an article in Greenwire, Frank addressed the dissenting opinion of Judge Milan Smith, who invoked Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels in suggesting that "those entangled in the ligatures of new rules created out of thin air" may feel like Swift's Gulliver did when tied down by tiny Lilliputians.  Judge Smith is "calling out his Ninth Circuit colleagues in a very public, injudicious way," Frank said.

Frank, a 1974 graduate of King Hall, is a leader in the field of environmental law and the founding Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at UC Davis School of Law.