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the hard choices over to the forces of litigation and bureaucratic inertia. II Any time that we take a course of action that makes somebody better off, we are judging that whatever the benefits, they are greater than the cost. The present endangered species act fails to balance costs and benefits meaningfully in three areas: 1) the need to save a species against the need for the benefits of a particular economic development project; 2) the saving of certain species, as opposed to the saving of other species; and 3) the saving of certain species as opposed to investing in other national priorities. Because under the law, all species are equal since each is invaluable, the Act explicitly avoids the hard choices that must be faced. Preserving declining species, however, does not require that the Act be scuttled. Rather it needs reform. Action to implement the Act should be subj ect to public scrutiny and review. The Endangered Species Act should be implemented like other federal laws to minimize adverse social and economic impacts. The Endangered Species Act is the only major environmental legislation that does not consider economics in arriving at decisions. In fact, cost consciousness may actually allow more protection of endangered species. Since the law does not discriminate among species, the Service's actions are sometimes determined by the latest target on the environmentalists' hit list, rather than by scientific analysis. Senator Mark Hatfield who offered the 1972 version of the Act, which eventually became the law in 1973, has stated: I want the Endangered Species Act to survive, but unlike many of my colleagues from urban areas, I also have to deal with the human side of the Act. Unfortunately, the strict application of the Endangered Species Act in the case of the Northern Spotted Owl has put an end for the time being to balanced resource management in the Pacific Northwest. House speaker Tom Foley has requested a congressional scientific committee to examine the Endangered Species Act and consider whether it should be amended to place a higher priority on the economics of decisions made under the Act. A growing number of other House and Senate members, at least seven Senators and seven Congressmen, have publicly expressed concern about the Act and called for its reform. According to a 1992 Times Mirror magazine's National Environmental Forum survey, public opinion on the subject of endangered species is consistent with the desire to promote both environmental and economic growth. The public favors the principal of weighing costs, while at the same time doing more to protect endangered species. The main-stream view is that while it is extremely important to protect endangered species, costs should be. considered while doing so. The poll found support for the idea of weighing both the costs and the benefits of protecting endangered species in all regions of the country, at all income and education levels, among both Democrats and Republicans, and even among active environmentalists. In the Times Mirror poll, the most popular argument for saving species was the economic one: direct tangible benefits from promoting and protecting biodiversity. Those surveyed also widely accepted the ecological argument, the idea that the 73