Research and Findings from Compiling HCP Cost Data Nationwide

An understanding of the costs of compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is foundational to private and public sector decision making (e.g., planning, identifying cost efficiencies, investing in voluntary conservation, informing policies). To date, there has been little formal examination of the estimated cost of ESA compliance. Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) outline the conservation actions that project proponents will undertake to minimize and offset the potential adverse effects of the proposed activity on the species. HCPs also require the project proponent to identify costs and thus provide a source of data for investigating the cost of compliance with the ESA.

The project identified and analyzed cost data found within 43 publicly available HCPs to estimate costs associated with compliance with the ESA. Applying a framework for categorizing ESA compliance costs by chronological stage, projected costs were summarized across the stages of different project categories (e.g., implementation, construction) and for different categories of projects (e.g., project-scale vs. large-scale, costs specific to wind project and linear asset projects). The research also explored patterns of how reported compliance action costs are distributed within the implementation stage (including compensatory mitigation and habitat restoration costs), as that contains the majority of projected costs reported in HCPs. This is the first-ever analysis of quantitative ESA costs, and the largest aggregation of cost data ever collected. As many data challenges and limitations were identified, the research provides recommendations to standardize cost reporting that would be beneficial for any future cost estimates.