WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are moving forward with legislation to roll back the Endangered Species Act, amid complaints that the landmark 44-year-old law hinders drilling, logging and other activities.
At simultaneous hearings Wednesday, House and Senate committees considered bills to revise the law and limit lengthy and costly litigation associated with it.
The bills come as a federal court lifted federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming and the Trump administration moved to lift protections for grizzly bears in and near Yellowstone National Park. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also is reviewing federal efforts to conserve the imperiled sage grouse in 11 Western states.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said the bills would curb excessive litigation and allow officials to focus on actual species conservation.
All too often, the endangered species law “has been misused to control land, block a host of economic activities important for jobs … proliferate costly litigation that drains taxpayer resources away from actual conservation efforts,” said Bishop, a Utah Republican.
Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the panel’s senior Democrat, said the law “does not need congressional meddling to work better. What it needs is congressional support.”
Despite years of Republican efforts to pass bills weakening the species law and cut funding for agencies responsible for protecting and recovering imperiled American wildlife, “99 percent of listed species have continued to survive, and 90 percent are on schedule to meet their recovery goals,” Grijalva said.
Environmental groups called the simultaneous hearings a “one-two punch” on threatened wildlife.
“While nine out of 10 Americans want to protect endangered species and their habitat, congressional leaders are spending their time dismantling the ESA in favor of special interests,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “Enactment of any of these bills will only hasten the disappearance of endangered and threatened species from our planet.”
Five bills were being considered by the House panel, and a sixth bill was being heard in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. One of the bills would allow economic factors to be considered in some species-listing decisions, while another would cap attorneys’ fees in endangered species cases.
