The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law in 1973 to protect animal and plant species at risk of extinction due to habitat changes or loss. The ESA is intended to conserve the habitats and to foster the recovery of threatened or endangered animal and plant species across the United States based on sound data and science. And though the ESA was never intended to be used by environmental organizations as a litigation tool, it has since been abused in order to halt development or destroy economic growth and job creation while diverting millions of taxpayer dollars away from species recovery.
Over the past few years, there have been numerous efforts in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and elsewhere to list species as endangered and place hundreds of thousands of acres of land off-limits to economic development. And a new, stronger wave of threats is expected.
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Weekly Newsletter – 7/5/19
Weekly Newsletter |July 5, 2019 Issues IPAA files comments as FWS weighs burying beetle downlisting. In May, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed easing protections for the American Burying Beetle, downlisting it to threatened from endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) submitted comments in response to the proposal, praising the action. [...]
Weekly Newsletter – 6/21/19
Weekly Newsletter |June 21, 2019 Issues Sage-grouse amendments in spending minibus fail in rules committee. Ahead of this week’s spending package debate, House lawmakers introduced dozens of proposed amendments to the so-called minibus that includes measures to fund the Department of Interior (DOI), Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency for fiscal 2020. Republicans filed multiple amendments to the DOI [...]
Weekly Newsletter – 6/14/19
Weekly Newsletter |June 14, 2019 Issues Lawsuit seeks formal determination on ESA status for lesser prairie chicken. This week, a coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit against the Interior Department (DOI) in an effort to force the agency to protect the lesser prairie chicken from habitat loss and the impacts of climate change. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the Fish [...]