Babbitt

Idaho Conservation League and Committee for Idaho’s High Desert (“ICL/CIHD”), intervenors in the district court proceedings, appeal from a district court judgment setting aside the final rule listing the Bruneau Hot Springs Snail as an endangered species. The judgment was entered after' a hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court determined that the listing rule was arbitrary and capricious because the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) committed several procedural errors during the period between the initial proposal and the final listing.

We conclude that the district court properly granted intervention to ICL/CIHD and that the intervenors have standing to maintain this appeal. On the merits this appeal raises two major issues. First, does the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), 16 U.S.C. § 1538 (b)(6), proscribe listing a species as endangered once the statutory twelve or eighteen month time limits have passed? We conclude that it does not. Legislative history indicates that Congress established time limits to speed up the listing process so that more species would be listed. The time limits were designed as an impetus to act rather than as a…