Snail Darter Controversy - Supreme Court Decision

Supreme Court Decision

The United States Congress had been inconsistent regarding the snail darter and the Endangered Species Act. Appropriations committees in both the House and Senate had taken a strong position against the snail darter. A 1977 Senate Appropriations Committee report stated:

This committee has not viewed the Endangered Species Act as preventing the completion and use of these projects which were well under way at the time the affected species were listed as endangered. If the act has such an effect, which is contrary to the Committee’s understanding of the intent of Congress in enacting the Endangered Species Act, funds should be appropriated to allow these projects to be completed and their benefits realized in the public interest, the Endangered Species Act not withstanding.

The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote for the majority. The court replied to the Tennessee Valley Authority's arguments and expanded on its decision:

• The language of the Act made no exceptions for projects like Tellico that were well under way when Congress passed the act.
• It is clear from the Act’s legislative history that Congress intended to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction. The pointed omission of the type of qualified language previously included in endangered species legislation reveals a conscious congressional design to give endangered species priority over the “primary missions” of federal agencies. Congress, moreover, foresaw that on occasion this would require agencies to alter ongoing projects in order to fulfill the Act’s goals.
• Though statements in Appropriations Committee Reports reflected the view of the Committees either that the Act did not apply to Tellico or that the dam should be completed regardless of the Act’s provisions, nothing in the TVA appropriations measures passed by Congress stated that the Tellico project was to be completed regardless of the Act’s requirements. When voting on appropriations measures, legislators are entitled to assume that the funds will be devoted to purposes that are lawful and not for any purpose forbidden. A contrary policy would violate the rules of both Houses of Congress, which provide that appropriations measures may not change existing substantive law. An appropriations committee’s expression does not operate to repeal or modify substantive legislation.
• Completion of the Tellico Dam project would violate the Act, so the Court of Appeals did not err by ordering the project to be enjoined. Congress has spoken in the plainest words, making it clear that endangered species are to be accorded the highest priorities. Since that legislative power has been exercised, it is up to the executive branch to administer the law and for the Judiciary to enforce it when, as here, enforcement has been sought.

Burger’s opinion made it clear that, as written, the Endangered Species Act explicitly forbade the completion of such projects as Tellico if the Secretary of Interior had determined that such a project would likely result in the elimination of a species. Regardless of the fact that over $100 million had been spent by 1978, and the dam was substantially finished, the court could not allow the TVA to finish the project. According to Burger, this would force the court “to ignore the ordinary meaning of plain language."

The Supreme Court decision set off a fury in Congress as some members sought to rework the act. In his tome "The Fishes of Tennessee", David Etnier later wrote: “the snail darter had become almost a household word, and in current usage ‘snail darter types’ is approximately synonymous with ‘ultra-liberal environmental activists.’”