House Republicans contemplate rollbacks for wildlife protections

WASHINGTON—Today m embers of the House Natural Resources Committee questioned witnesses about reducing crucial protections for imperiled species in order to benefit industry and big business.

Republican members of the Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee gave the public a glimpse of their vision to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA), an incredibly effective and popular law that protects animals, plants and habitat from human threats, including habitat loss and pollution. The members also targeted the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The hearing came on the heels of mass firings at natural resource agencies in recent weeks, including the Fish and Wildlife Service, which are impairing the agencies’ ability to fulfill their unambiguous conservation duties.

The loss of such critical endangered species protections would hasten extinctions with domino effects resulting in relatively stable plant and animal populations suffering. Many endangered and threatened species that would be impacted by such rollbacks help clean and protect our drinking water sources (including freshwater mussels) and contribute billions of dollars in pest services to the agriculture industry (bats).

Here in the South, the stakes for wildlife are even higher. More than 250 species across SELC’s six state region are protected under the Endangered Species Act. State wildlife agencies rely on partnership with and funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect our region’s world class abundance of plant and animal species—including both species at risk of extinction and those that are stable. Weakening federal laws and resources would place an enormous burden on state agencies to conserve endangered species that occur across state boundaries, in addition to their existing work stewarding more common species to prevent the need for federal protections.

In response, the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Wildlife Program Leader Ramona McGee released the following statement:

If Republican lawmakers follow this path of choosing the interests of big corporations ahead of our natural heritage, they risk breaching the trust of the American public. The types of rollbacks contemplated during today’s committee hearing would erase the hard work of wildlife managers who honorably protect our public trust. Mass firings of public servants who work with applicants to design and issue permits to protect imperiled species is the real threat to permitting hurdles, not the ESA.

Our elected leaders should take note of the public response and backlash to mass firings of federal workers who protect our public lands and wildlife. Dismantling the laws that empower those workers to be stewards of our natural resources will evoke outrage as well.

This is about so much more than saving faraway, elusive species—or seeing less birds at your backyard feeder. Animals, plants and their habitat help protect our clean water, clean air, and our food supply. Allowing species to languish and suffer for the sake of development or extractive industries will make our country less safe for people as well.

The Endangered Species Act is one of the most effective and comprehensive conservation laws in the world, protecting 99 percent of species listed as threatened or endangered from extinction. The law is also incredibly popular and has received bipartisan support for more than 50 years after it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. Iconic species like the bald eagle and American alligator were saved from extinction because of the Endangered Species Act.