The below article appeared in the
Morning Ag Clips today. With Trump being sworn in as president I thought this was a timely article to post. Stay tuned, we will see where it leads. This may directly impact logging in Central Pennsylvania with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listing of the northern long-eared bat as threatened in 2015.
"It has
never been used for the rehabilitation of species. It's been used for control
of the land," said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop.
"We've missed the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act. It has
been hijacked."
Republicans
see an opportunity to advance broad changes to law.
BILLINGS,
Mont. — In control of Congress and soon the White House, Republicans are
readying plans to roll back the influence of the Endangered Species Act, one of
the government’s most powerful conservation tools, after decades of complaints
that it hinders drilling, logging and other activities.
Over the
past eight years, GOP lawmakers sponsored dozens of measures aimed at
curtailing the landmark law or putting species such as grey wolves and sage
grouse out of its reach. Almost all were blocked by Democrats and the White
House or lawsuits from environmentalists.
Now, with
the ascension of President-elect Donald Trump, Republicans see an opportunity
to advance broad changes to a law they contend has been exploited by wildlife
advocates to block economic development.
“It has
never been used for the rehabilitation of species. It’s been used for control
of the land,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop.
“We’ve missed the entire purpose of the Endangered Species Act. It has been
hijacked.”
Bishop said
he “would love to invalidate” the law and would need other lawmakers’
co-operation.
The 1973 act
was ushered though Congress nearly unanimously, in part to stave off extinction
of the national symbol, the bald eagle. Eagle populations have since rebounded,
and the birds were taken off the threatened and endangered list in 2007.
In the
eagles’ place, another emblematic species — the wolf — has emerged as a prime
example of what critics say is wrong with the current law: seemingly endless
litigation that offers federal protection for species long after government
biologists conclude that they have recovered.
Wolf attacks
on livestock have provoked hostility against the law, which keeps the animals
off-limits to hunting in most states. Other species have attracted similar ire
— Canada lynx for halting logging projects, the lesser prairie chicken for
impeding oil and gas development and salmon for blocking efforts to reallocate
water in California.
Reforms
proposed by Republicans include placing limits on lawsuits that have been used to
maintain protections for some species and force decisions on others, as well as
adopting a cap on how many species can be protected and giving states a greater
say in the process.
Wildlife
advocates are bracing for changes that could make it harder to add species to
the protected list and to usher them through to recovery. Dozens are due for
decisions this year, including the Pacific walrus and the North American
wolverine, two victims of potential habitat loss due to climate change.
“Any species
that gets in the way of a congressional initiative or some kind of development
will be clearly at risk,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of
Wildlife and a former Fish and Wildlife Service director under President Bill
Clinton. “The political lineup is as unfavorable to the Endangered Species Act
as I can remember.”
More than
1,600 plants and animals in the U.S. are now shielded by the law. Hundreds more
are under consideration for protections. Republicans complain that fewer than
70 have recovered and had protections lifted.
“That
tension just continues to expand,” said Jason Shogren, professor of natural
resource conservation at the University of Wyoming. “Like a pressure cooker,
every now and then, you’ve got to let out some steam or it’s really going to
blow.”
Congress
reconvened last week with two critics of the law holding key Senate leadership
positions — Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso as the incoming chairman of the
Committee on Environment and Public Works and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski as
chairwoman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Spokesman
Mike Danylak said Barrasso will seek to “strengthen and modernize” the
management of endangered species but offered no specifics.
Barrasso’s
predecessor, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, suggested in an interview that one
species should be removed from the list every time another is added. Another
Republican, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, said he wants to limit applications for
protections to one species at a time.
In the
House, Rep. Tom McClintock of California, chairman of the House Subcommittee on
Federal Lands, said he wants to ease logging restrictions in national forests
to reduce tree density blamed for catastrophic wildfires.
Some Democrats,
too, have been frustrated with the law: Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson and two
other Democrats joined 11 Republicans last week on a bill to end protections
for wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming.
Simply by
striking a few key words from the law, it could be transformed from a tool to
protect huge areas of habitat for imperiled species into little more than
limits on hunting for protected animals, said J.B. Ruhl, a Vanderbilt
University law professor considered a leading expert on the act.
Trump’s
position is unclear. A strong advocate for energy development, he has lamented
environmental policies he says hinder drilling. But his appointment of Montana
Rep. Ryan Zinke as Interior secretary was seen by some conservationists as a
signal that Trump will support protections for public lands to the benefit of
fish and wildlife.
The Trump
transition team did not respond to requests for comment. The incoming
administration already has immigration, the health care law repeal and
infrastructure improvements atop its agenda.
If the
administration or Congress wants to gut the law, “they certainly can do it,”
Vermont Law School professor Patrick Parenteau said. “The real question with
the Endangered Species Act is where does it rank?”
Advocates
and senior Obama administration officials argue the law’s success is best
measured by extinctions avoided — for 99 per cent of protected species,
including black-footed ferrets, whooping cranes, American crocodiles and
hundreds of others.
“There’s a
lot of evidence that some species are conservation-reliant,” Ruhl said.
Political fights over certain species have dragged out for decades, he added,
because recovering them from “the brink of extinction is a lot harder than we
thought.”
Morning Ag Clips
Published on January 17th, 2017
