Nixing of Biden Endangered Species Rules Advances in House Panel

April 28, 2023

Endangered species listings the White House favors would be voided and a Trump-era rule limiting critical habitat would be reinstated under Republican bills a House panel advanced Friday.

The move is the latest example of Republicans using the Congressional Review Act to target the administration’s rules on energy and environment regulations. The GOP push has recently included rolling back a provision on heavy-duty truck emissions the Senate passed April 26 and softening the definition of federal waters, which Congress passed and President Joe Biden vetoed earlier this month. Republicans, and some Democrats, believe the environmental regulations are too burdensome on industry and other stakeholders.

Natural Resources Democrats during the markup warned that using the CRA to reverse actions under the 1973 Endangered Species Act would imperil species vulnerable to extinction.

Two of the disapproval resolutions would reverse 2022 final rules listing two populations of the lesser prairie chicken as threatened and endangered, respectively, under the ESA (H.J. Res. 29) as well as roll back the endangered listing for the northern long-eared bat (H.J. Res. 49).

A third measure (H.J. Res. 46) would reinstate a rule under former President Donald Trump that the Biden administration rescinded, narrowing the definition of critical habitat under ESA. The Trump regulation defined critical habitat as an area necessary to support a species, and increased the threshold for designating unoccupied, potential future critical habitat. Democrats said the CRA resolution would eviscerate the government’s flexibility to designate new critical habitats for a species as a result of climate change, for example.

Republican senators have also introduced companion measures for all three House bills.

Modernizing Environmental Law

Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) noted the Endangered Species Act hasn’t been updated since 1988. ESA, along with the National Environmental Policy Act, is among the landmark environmental laws that Republicans, and some Democrats, have sought to modernize in recent years, saying they hamstring activities including permitting and wildfire management.

But ranking member Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) argued enacting the resolutions under the Congressional Review Act would make it almost impossible for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to designate the species as endangered in the future, even if the animals’ situations worsen. Measures enacted under the CRA prevent the administration from issuing future “substantially similar” regulations.

Huffman said the CRA resolutions were “tantamount to legislating extinction” of species. “It is very extreme to use the Congressional Review Act to prevent listing of a species,” he said.

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By:  Kellie Lunney
Source: Bloomberg Government