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. . - 2 RECONCILING CONFLICTS UNDER THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT . I I Wildlife Service, and draft guidelines that elaborate on those regulations. The study begins with an overview of the Endangered Species Act, examining its key fea- tures in sufficient detail to convey an undcr- standing of their relationship to the habitat conservation planning process. Next, a quick summary of the various habitat conservation plans prepared to date as well as some of those in prepara.tion is presented. The final several chapters set forth our recommendations and the bases for them. Chapter 3 focuses on the process by which HCPs are put together: how should an HCP effort get started, who should participate in it, how should the planning process itself be funded, and what role should the Fish and Wildlife Service play in that process are among the questions examined here. Chapter 4 turns from process to sub- stance. What should the scope-biological, geographic, and temporal-of an HCP be? What should a good. HCP contain and by what standards should its adequacy be judged? Chapter 5 looks ahead to the issue of what happens after an HCP is completed and ap- proved. What mechanisms should be employed to assure its effective implementation over time? Chapter 6 anempts to pur HCPs into context as one mechanism for achieving the goals of the Endangered Species Act. Its object is to explore how ESA's other mechanisms need to be implemented in order to maximize the benefit from HCPs. The benefits of habitat conservation plan- ning can be substantial, but they are not auto- matic. From the point of view of protecting endangered species, habitat conservation plans are neither a good thing nor a bad thing in the abstract. They offer the potential to serve as a useful tool for preserving endangered species; they also have the potential to undermine the protection that ESA was intended to afford such species. The purpose of this report is nO( to render a judgment on the value of HCPs in general or of any particular HCP; rather it is to offer our views as to how habitat conservation I, i, r :1 II' I I ! 1 i: II planning can best realizc its beneficial poten- tial. To understand habitat conservation plan- ning and its role in the fedcral endangered species program, it is esscntial to have a firm grounding in the key features of the En- dangered Species Act. The remainder of this chapter provides a quick overview of those fea- tures and their importance. LISTING The Endangered Species Act protects species that have been formally designated as either "endangered" or "threatened." The process of adding a species to the endangered or threatened list is one of informal rule making. A notice of proposed listing in the Federal Register starts the process. Interested members of thc public may comment in writing or at local public hearings. The process typically concludes within a year with publication of a final rule. The procedural requirements for list- ing a species can be bypassed in emergency situations, though such emergency listings rcmain in effect for only 240 days. At present, about 450 species that occur in the United States or its territories are desig- nated (or "listed") as endangered and about 150 as threatened. At the same time, however, there is a nearly equal number of still-unlisted U.S. species that are "candidates" for listing; that is, they have been formally identified by the Fish and Wildlife Service as likely to war- rant listing. These so-callcd category I can- didates are not necessarily any less imperiled or any more secure than listed species. Rather, they are simply the accumulated backlog of species for which the Fish and Wildlife Service lacks the resources to carry out the listing process in a timely manner. An even larger . group of category II candidates-nearly 3,000 in all-is composed of species for which cur- rently available information suggests that listing may be warranted, though additional informa- tion is needed. The same scarcity of resources