Laserfiche WebLink
<br />l <br /> <br />The method of analyzing the economic impacts of designating critical habitat and the exclusion <br />process is more than of academic interest. To date, the only USFWS sponsored studies we are <br />aware of which analyze critical habitat impacts in a general equilibrium framework are those <br />presented in this paper. This type of analysis is essential for the exclusion process. A critical <br />habitat exclusion process requires that the analysts promulgate some criteria deciding whether or <br />not to make an exclusion. For both studies, the recommended threshold for exclusion was one <br />percent deviation from the baseline projection of aggregate economic activity (Department of the <br />Interior 1994; Brookshire, McKee, and Schmidt 1995). The geographic scope of the study and <br />the breadth of the economic impacts required that the criterion be based on aggregate economic <br />activity. In the spotted owl study, the threshold was defined in terms of change in employment <br />in the logging industry at the county level. <br /> <br />The consequences of adopting a narrow region for analysis and an essentially partial equilibrium <br />framework are most apparent in the case of the critical habitat assessment for the northern <br />spotted owl. In that case, the exclusion process resulted in approximately 40 percent of the <br />critical habitat initially proposed being excluded. It is by no means certain that the outcome <br />would have been different had the northern spotted owl study utilized an applied general <br />equilibrium model. Perhaps, however, less habitat would have been lost as a result of the <br />exclusion process. <br /> <br />39 <br />