Congress, in a First, Removes an Animal From the Endangered Species List
US Fish & Wildlife, via Associated Press
Wolves in Montana and Idaho will lose federal protection.
By FELICITY BARRINGER and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 12, 2011
Congress for the first time is directly intervening in the Endangered Species List and removing an animal from it, establishing a precedent for political influence over the list that has outraged environmental groups.
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Times Topics: Federal Budget (2011) — Government Shutdown Averted | Wolves
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A rider to the Congressional budget measure agreed to last weekend dictates that wolves in Montana and Idaho be taken off the endangered species list and managed instead by state wildlife agencies, which is in direct opposition to a federal judge’s recent decision forbidding theInterior Department to take such an action.
While the language on the Rocky Mountain wolves was a tiny item in budgetary terms, environmental groups said it set an unnerving precedent by letting Congress, rather than a science-based federal agency, remove endangered species protections.
The rider is the first known instance of Congress’ directly intervening in the list. While Congress overrode the protections extended to a tiny Tennessee fish called the snail darter about two decades ago, it did so by authorizing the construction of a dam that had originally been tabled to protect the fish. In that case, Congress did not overturn scientists’ findings about the fish’s viability.
There are myriad restrictions and budget cuts for environmental initiatives in the proposed budget. Most appeared modest compared to the more drastic cutbacks in the original House budget. Federal agencies were still working through the extensive and complex list provided by Congress on Tuesday, trying to determine what their impact might be.
Among the cuts were $49 million from programs relating to climate change, $438 million from programs supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy, $638 million from environmental cleanup efforts by the Defense Department and $997 million from revolving funds through which the Environmental Protection Agency provides money for local water treatment and pollution cleanup programs.
The budget rider on the wolves, backed by two Western legislators — Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, and Representative Mike Simpson, Republican of Idaho — requires the Interior Department to adopt its earlier plan, removing wolves from the endangered list in those two states because it deemed that the states’ management plans, which include hunts of the animals, were acceptable.
The rider also precluded judicial review of this provision.
The wolf issue has great political resonance among the ranchers and hunters of Montana. The first group is concerned about livestock; the second about declines in elk and moose herds. Senator Tester is up for re-election in 2012.
The fact that the department is being required to do what it had originally intended to do did not take the edge off arguments from environmental advocates that Congress had crossed a crucial line.
Michael T. Leahy, the Rocky Mountain region director for the group Defenders of Wildlife, said in an interview Tuesday, “Now, anytime anybody has an issue with an endangered species, they are going to run to Congress and try to get the same treatment the anti-wolf people have gotten.”
A spokeswoman for Interior Department said it would have no comment on the budget rider.
State officials want the population culled because of the threat wolves pose to elk, moose and deer. Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said Tuesday, “We need to be able to manage them as a state to balance them with other wildlife and landowner impacts pertinent to livestock.”
The two sides had recently reached a proposed settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by environmental groups against the Fish and Wildlife Service and Idaho and Montana officials. But the judge, Donald W. Molloy, rejected the settlement.
Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, declined to comment on how all the proposed cuts would affect operations at his department. He did note that the agency responsible for regulating offshore oil and gas development would get an increase in money, allowing it to hire dozens of new inspectors, scientists and other officials.
Interior Department officials would not discuss the bill’s elimination of a program to expand wilderness areas in the West, a program prized by Mr. Salazar but bitterly opposed by many lawmakers from the region who argue that it will limit development of natural resources, hunting and recreational uses of public lands.
The National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service take relatively modest cuts.
Conservation programs at the Department of Agriculture will be reduced by $800 million, while the agency’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program will be cut by $350 million, essentially ending its financing for the rest of the fiscal year, officials said.
An E.P.A. spokesman, Brendan Gilfillan, said agency staff members were reviewing the spending measure. “We will have more details when that review is complete,” he said.
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