ABSTRACT
Three men sat at a corner table in the House of Representatives cafeteria, drinking coffee. Earl Baysinger, Frank M. Potter, and Clark Bavin hunched over a yellow legal pad, writing parts of what would become the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The need to save habitat struck a harmonious chord in Baysinger. The 1969 Endangered Species Conservation Act was part of an unstoppable flood of environmental legislation. One endangered species act set off demands for another. Not only did environmentalists object to the weakness of the act, but businesses did not like it either. By curtailing US imports of endangered species, it put American companies at a disadvantage against foreign competitors. They demanded a level playing field. In response, the Nixon administration in March 1973 signed still another treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which was intended to end international trade as a threat to the survival of endangered species.
