Stewart & Jasper Orchards v. Jewell

Linked with:

• State Water Contractors v. Jewell

Issue: (1) Whether the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is obligated, under the Endangered Species Act, to demonstrate how a reasonable and prudent alternative to any federal agency action that is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of a protected species or adversely modify its critical habitat is economically feasible; if so, whether it can ignore the devastating impacts on the human community caused by the alternative's implementation, as the Ninth Circuit held below in conflict with the Fourth Circuit; (2) whether and to what extent (if any) the Service's interpretation of its own regulation defining “reasonable and prudent alternative” – an interpretation that dispenses with the obligation to explain or provide evidence of the alternative's economic feasibility – is entitled to deference; and (3) whether the decision of this Court in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill – which interpreted the Endangered Species Act prior to Congress’s addition of the “reasonable and prudent alternative” framework – still requires federal agencies to protect species and their habitat “whatever the cost.”