WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court today rejected a challenge to the federal Endangered Species Act by California officials wanting to build a hospital in an area inhabited by a type of fly that faces possible extinction.
The court, without comment, turned down San Bernardino County's argument that using the federal law to protect creatures that live in only one state goes beyond Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce.
About half the 1,082 species designated under the law as threatened or in danger of extinction are found in one state alone.
The county urged the justices to use the case to clarify, and perhaps build on, their 1995 ruling that struck down a federal law banning gun possession near schools on grounds such possession was not related to interstate commerce. That decision was the first since the New Deal era of the 1930s in which the court ruled that Congress exceeded its authority to regulate interstate commerce.
The California case involved the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, which lives only in parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. More than 97 percent of the fly's habitat has been destroyed, and its population has been estimated in the low hundreds.
In 1992, San Bernardino County officials decided to buy a 76-acre site to build a new county hospital.
The land included Delhi fly habitat, and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service notified officials the fly was likely to be listed as an endangered species. The fly was listed as endangered in 1993.
The Endangered Species Act generally makes it unlawful to harm or kill wildlife listed as in danger of extinction. However, the government issues permits allowing some incidental harm that is not likely to jeopardize an endangered species' existence.
The county modified some of its hospital plans to accommodate the fly. But in late 1995 the county, the cities of Colton and Fontana, the National Association of Home Builders and the Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation sued the federal government. They said the federal law could not be used to protect a species that lives in one state on nonfederal land.
The lawsuit said the fly is not related to interstate commerce, and therefore its protection must be left to the state.
A federal judge ruled against those who sued, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. Two of the three judges said the loss of animal diversity has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
In the appeal acted on today, the county's lawyers asked the justices to decide whether Congress can "regulate land use in isolated corners of the United States."
Clinton administration lawyers urged the justices to reject the appeal. They said the disputed federal law reflects "congressional concern about the accelerating pace of extinctions" and inadequate state efforts to protect endangered species.
The case is National Association of Home Builders vs. Babbitt, 97-1451.
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