The U.S. Supreme Court case Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, et al. v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon et al., 1994 revolved around the interpretation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The dispute was over whether or not "harm" to species included habitat modification and degradation that could lead to injury or death indirectly. The Sweet Home Chapter argued against this broad definition while the Secretary of Interior defended it as necessary for effective conservation efforts. In a 6-3 decision, the court sided with Babbitt and upheld that harm under ESA does include significant habitat modification where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns such as breeding, feeding or sheltering.

In the dissenting opinion for Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, Justice Scalia argued that the majority's interpretation of "harm" in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was overly broad and inconsistent with its original intent. He contended that by including habitat modification as harm, it effectively expanded federal regulation to an unprecedented degree without clear authorization from Congress. Furthermore, he criticized the reliance on legislative history rather than statutory text to interpret ESA provisions. In his view, this approach could lead to arbitrary enforcement and potentially criminalize ordinary land use activities if they inadvertently harmed protected species or their habitats.