ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief review of some basic elements of United States civics. Laws, whether environmental or otherwise, begin as bills in Congress. Once promulgated, each amendment to the Endangered Species Act became itself a separate law and was independently written into the United States Statutes at Large and assigned its own statutory citation number. Like other statutes, environmental and otherwise, the Endangered Species Act is divided into “sections” containing compartmentalized language outlining distinct elements or accomplishing necessary administrative functions. The term candidate species is more the product of regulations issued under the Endangered Species Act than it is of the act itself. But, the term candidate species is really a logistical concept that agencies found necessary when developing regulatory procedures for implementing the act. The Endangered Species Act does not authorize regulatory protections for any species that are not duly listed under the act as threatened or endangered.
