The snail darter controversy related to the discovery in 1973 of an endangered species during the construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River; the dam project had been authorized and begun before passage of protective environmental legislation. On August 12, 1973, University of Tennessee biologist and professor David Etnier discovered the snail darter in the Little Tennessee River while doing research related to a lawsuit under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The lawsuit said that the Tellico Reservoir, to be created by Tellico Dam, would alter the habitat of the river to the point of killing off the endangered snail darter. The NEPA lawsuits slowed the construction of the Tellico Dam but did not stop it. After the Supreme Court upheld protection under NEPA, Congress passed legislation specifically exempting the snail darter from protection; the dam project and inundation of the reservoir were completed in 1979. US Supreme Court decision The United States Congress had been inconsistent regarding the snail darter and the Endangered Species Act. Appropriations committees in both the House and Senate had taken a strong position against stopping the dam and reservoir project in order to protect the snail darter. A 1977 Senate Appropriations Committee report stated: This committee has not viewed the Endangered Species Act as preventing the completion and use of these projects which were well under way at the time the affected species were listed as endangered. If the act has such an effect, which is contrary to the Committee's understanding of the intent of Congress in enacting the Endangered Species Act, funds should be appropriated to allow these projects to be completed and their benefits realized in the public interest, the Endangered Species Act not withstanding. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote for the majority. The court replied to the Tennessee Valley Authority's arguments and expanded on its decision: The language of the Act made no exceptions for projects like Tellico that were well under way when Congress passed the act. It is clear from the Act's legislative history that Congress intended to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction. The pointed omission of the type of qualified language previously included in endangered species legislation reveals a conscious congressional design to give endangered species priority over the "primary missions" of federal