The National Wilderness Institute charged the Interior Department with failure to remove several plant and wildlife species from their endangered list despite the common knowledge that they don't exist. The Department resists the change because it says it costs $37,000 to remove nonexistent species (such as the "Maguire daisy") from the list but meanwhile has added hundreds of new ones in recent years.

Of 29 plant and animal species Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt later removed from the endangered list, it turns out that five had become extinct since being listed, eight because of listing errors, and four because the species never existed in the first place. "We can now finally prove one thing conclusively," Babbitt declared, "the Endangered Species Act works. Period."

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