WildEarth Guardians

Friday, July 8, 2011
House Appropriations Subcommittee Attempts to Gut the Endangered Species Act

Controversial Spending Bill Takes First Step Toward Becoming Law
Contact: Taylor Jones (303) 573-4898 x1159

Washington, DC – July 8.  In the latest of a series of attacks on imperiled wildlife in Congress, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies voted in favor of appropriations legislation that would prohibit species listings and habitat conservation under the Endangered Species Act. The bill now goes to the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration.

House Republicans propose to fund the Fish and Wildlife Service $1,099,055,000 for fiscal year 2012 ($314 million below the amount appropriated in fiscal year 2011 and $506 million below the amount requested by President Obama) only if those funds are not used to list imperiled species as endangered or threatened or designate critical habitat pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. The bill would allow funds to be used for delisting a species or downlisting it from endangered to threatened, but not for reclassifying a threatened species as endangered.

“I’m disgusted,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians.  “This is a blatant, wide-reaching attempt to strip away the environmental protections that safeguard our country’s natural resources.  The House of Representatives is not solving budget problems – they are creating environmental problems.  And it will cost us in human health, clean air and water, and biodiversity.”

Along with restrictions on funding for imperiled species, the bill would prohibit judicial review of any decision to delist wolves in Wyoming and potentially any state in the Great Lakes wolf range.  The bill would also slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.  It includes legislative riders that would relax greenhouse gas regulations and restrictions on mountaintop removal, pesticide pollution in rivers and streams, and coal ash.  It would also allow uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.

“Given the backlog of hundreds of imperiled species waiting for federal protection, the Service needs more resources to combat the extinction crisis, not less,” continued Jones. “We demand that the current policy of giving handouts to polluters and special interests be replaced by a commitment to following sound science and protecting our natural heritage.”

Listing species under the Endangered Species Act has proven very effective in preventing species extinction. Over 99 percent of plants and animals listed under the act persist today. Scientists estimate that 227 species would have gone extinct if not for ESA listing. Listed species also benefit from the development of federally funded recovery plans and critical habitat, if designated.

Download a copy of the Appropriations Bill for Interior and Environment here.