House Republicans moved to delay an Earth Day vote on a bill that would overhaul the Endangered Species Act, the law that has imposed rules meant to protect imperiled wildlife from extinction for more than 50 years.
Republicans have long sought to amend the ESA, claiming the law has been weaponized by environmentalists and created bureaucratic and legal red tape for infrastructure and slowed economic growth, rather than encouraging species recovery.
Recommended Stories
The ESA Amendments Act, which was introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR), was scheduled for a floor vote on Wednesday afternoon. However, just after 1 p.m., consideration of the bill was postponed.
House leadership did not give a reason for the delay in the vote. However, reporting from Politico indicated that some Florida Republicans had raised concerns about the text.
If passed, the legislation would make several significant changes to the 1973 law, focusing on species recovery and streamlining ESA-related permits. Republicans have claimed the existing law fails to live up to its intended purpose by keeping species on endangered or threatened lists indefinitely.
At the time the bill was introduced, Westerman cited that, since the ESA was enacted, roughly 1,700 species have been listed as threatened or endangered. Only 3% of that total have ever been classified as recovered or delisted.
“The Endangered Species Act has consistently failed to achieve its intended goals and has been warped by decades of radical environmental litigation into a weapon instead of a tool,” Westerman said at the time the bill was introduced.
Specifically, the legislation would order the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to submit a National Listing Work Plan that would set a five-year schedule and plan for listing endangered and threatened species, as well as the designation of critical habitats.
Within this plan, the bill would give the agencies more time to act on listing proposals and eliminate the requirement to act within 12 months.
The legislation would also limit what may be designated as a critical habitat for an endangered or threatened species and limit protections for threatened species. States would also be given more authority to regulate the recovery of a threatened species if federal agencies determine that state authorities have a proposed recovery plan to conserve the species.
Additionally, the bill would create voluntary conservation agreements for private landowners and loosen environmental review requirements for obtaining “take” permits, which allow for the accidental harming, harassing, or killing of threatened or endangered species or critical habitats.
It would also determine that the removal of a species from threatened or endangered listings is not subject to judicial review during the five-year monitoring period after a species is removed from either list.
The National Parks Conservation Association criticized this amendment, and several others, saying it “eliminates the checks and balances between the executive and judicial branches.”
The bill also proposes renaming the ESA to the Endangered Species Recovery Act.
Democrats and environmentalists, including movie star Leonardo DiCaprio, have lambasted attempts to amend the law, arguing that reforms to the ESA would strip protections to threatened species, lead to higher extinction rates, and prioritize industrial growth over wildlife conservation.
Even if the bill passes in the House, Republicans face a steep hill to climb to pass similar ESA reforms in the Senate, as any bill will need 60 votes to pass. To reach this threshold, at least seven Democrats will need to vote in favor.
However, in the last year, some Democrats have appeared more willing to discuss proposals put forward by Westerman in order to streamline the federal permitting process and make it easier to develop clean energy and infrastructure projects.
“I’m not going to throw my arms open, but if anyone can get me to the table, it’s Westerman,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told E&E News when the bill was first introduced.
But a recent move from the Trump administration to lift endangered species protections in the Gulf of America to bolster offshore oil and gas drilling may make Democrats in the Senate less willing to negotiate on the issue.
Wednesday’s canceled floor vote coincided with Earth Day, which some environmentalist and conservation groups said was not a coincidence, as the Trump administration has moved to roll back climate- and environment-related rules and regulations to promote its pro-fossil fuel energy agenda.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LIFTS ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTIONS IN GULF OF AMERICA TO BOOST DRILLING
Ahead of Wednesday, the Endangered Species Coalition said the bill’s passage would turn Earth Day into “Extinction Day.”
“If this bill becomes law, the consequences will be measured in lost protections, damaged ecosystems, and the irreversible extinction of species that can never be brought back,” said Jewel Tomasula, policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition.
