Westerman wants an ESA overhaul. Will Senate Dems play along?
A permitting package may be the best vehicle this Congress for supporters of amending the Endangered Species Act.
Republicans have tried — and failed — to overhaul the Endangered Species Act for decades. This time could be different.
House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) is leading legislation that would take the most significant swing at the 1973 law in its more than 50-year history with his “ESA Amendments Act of 2025.”
Past attempts to amend the law have largely been stymied by Democrats, who have long viewed the ESA as an untouchable “bedrock” environmental law. But now some powerful Democrats tell POLITICO’s E&E News they’re leaving the door open to negotiating with Westerman on the ESA.
That’s a significant shift that could unlock a path for reforms in this Congress to a statute that has saved 99 percent of the species it has sought to protect.
“I’m not going to throw my arms open, but if anyone can get me to the table, it’s Westerman,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The change in tone on the ESA comes amid a broader shift for Democrats, who are showing an increased willingness to trade environmental dogmas to speed up the buildout of green energy and other economic infrastructure. They came close to striking a deal with Westerman to ease the environmental review process for permitting late last year — the likely vehicle for any ESA changes.
“I’m always looking to make everything better. I’d want to see to what benefit: What is he trying to improve, and how does it make the system better?” Hickenlooper said.
Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) also left the door open to negotiating on the ESA. But he insisted the talks must avoid gutting the ESA for industry interests.
“I think we should always be willing to look at existing law and ask how can it be improved,” Heinrich said. “That said, I think the ESA has largely been a very successful program, and every time there has been a quote-unquote ‘reform’ bill, it’s really been about handing the keys to the kingdom to some interest group.”
“So I would not shut the door on finding ways to improve the ESA, but I have not seen products from the House in the past that have done that in good faith,” Heinrich added.
The Senate Democrats’ willingness to talk should be music to Westerman’s ears. In an interview, the Republican said he views his bill as a starting point to reach a bipartisan deal. A bill to amend the ESA would need 60 votes in the Senate, meaning at least seven Democrats would have to vote for it.
“We looked at everything we thought needed to be fixed and put it in this bill,” Westerman said. “If we do good to make the bill better, then we all win in the long run, whether we get the whole thing passed or critical components of it that we can agree on.”
“The goal is to get a good bill and try to make that happen, and if you can’t get that, then you look at where you can get bits and pieces of it,” he added.
‘All that it does is gut the ESA’
Westerman may be able to pass the bill in its entirety out of the House along party lines. Most Senate Democrats interviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News had not yet studied Westerman’s bill.
But the lower chamber’s Democrats hate the bill, a view that is likely to be reflected by their counterparts in the Senate and invite a tough negotiation.
“I can’t tell you how much I would love to have a sincere, problem-solving, forward-looking conversation about the ESA,” said House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “But Senate Democrats and anyone else who looks at this bill are going to see that all that it does is gut the ESA.”
Huffman was part of a task force that Westerman put together last Congress to look at reforms to the ESA. But he says his suggestions were largely thrown by the wayside.
“This is something that I’m actively exploring with my staff, how can Democrats offer up some ways to modernize and improve this important bill so we’re not just saying ‘no’ to all of their efforts to weaken it,” Huffman said.
“[But this bill] basically takes all the things that protect wildlife and weakens them and all of the things that leave wildlife unprotected and expands them.”
Westerman’s bill takes a number of steps that advocates say would weaken the law.
It would require an economic impact analysis to accompany any decision to list a species as endangered or threatened. That currently comes into play only during the protection of critical habitat, and ESA advocates warn that the new requirement could poison the well of public opinion against protecting endangered species.
The bill would also raise the bar for whether a species is in “jeopardy” in consultations between state wildlife agencies and the federal government. Advocates warn the language would gut the current consultation process that prohibits the federal government from taking actions that would harm endangered species.
The current standard for ESA consultation requires that federal actions are “not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of a listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat.”
Other changes would allow states to take steps with their own recovery efforts for threatened species; another attempts to thwart litigation in a pattern GOP detractors call “sue and settle.”
“Margins are slim in this Congress, and this bill is very extreme,” said Ellen Richmond, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “This is not a minor streamlining or an optimization; it really would eviscerate the Endangered Species Act and expose lots of beloved American species like manatees, sea turtles and polar bears to much less protection and potentially even a slide toward extinction.
“We are denouncing it in the strongest possible terms,” she added.
The permitting factor
To get past Democratic acrimony over the ESA, Westerman and Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) are hoping to package ESA changes into a bipartisan permitting reform deal.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remain optimistic that a permitting deal could be struckthis Congress, and Republicans have a stronger hand to drive new issues into a deal since they hold majorities in both chambers.
“That’s gotta be part of permitting if we can get it,” Capito said in an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News. “Egregious enforcement on ESA has stopped projects or hasn’t looked for ways to sort of protect habitats and the species while we’re moving forward with projects, so I think that’s the direction we’re going to try to go in permitting if we can.”
Westerman agreed that ESA changes could go through in “potentially a permitting package, if it had enough momentum.”
Another permitting reform-supporting Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, said he’s willing to entertain Capito’s suggestion at the negotiating table — within limits.
“Look, I’m the author of the clean energy tax credits. … I’ve always felt that expediting permitting is key and that it can be done without throwing the environmental laws in the garbage can,” the Finance Committee chair said. “So I’m happy to look at what my colleagues are doing.”
By: Garrett Downs
Source: E&E News
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