The House narrowly passed what might be the most straightforward piece of legislation in years: Delist the gray wolf and stop litigating it.
H.R. 6784, the “Manage our Wolves Act,” passed the House midday on Nov. 16 on a largely partisan 196-180 vote.
The act, in summary, directs the Secretary of the Interior to remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing protections from the gray wolf in the 48 contiguous states. It additionally states that the action “shall not be subject to judicial review.”
The bill was introduced to the House by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI-07) in mid-September. It was co-sponsored by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-05), Dan Newhouse (R-WA-04), and Collin Peterson (D-MN-07). It passed the House Committee on Natural Resources with a vote of 19-15.
The House passage of the bill unsurprisingly drew both strong praise and harsh criticism.
From within the House, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), House Natural Resources Committee chairman, praised the vote, saying “it’s time to delist.”
Rep. Raъl Grijalva (D-AZ-03), ranking member of the committee, did not agree.
“It is estimated that there were once hundreds of thousands of wolves in the lower 48,” he argued in the minority committee response to the vote. “Today there are less than 6,000. Gray wolves continue to need ESA protection.”
In general, industry leaders praised the vote and urged the Senate to up the bill quickly.
“Since 2011, the best scientific and commercial data available has supported removing gray wolves from the List of Threatened and Endangered Species,” said National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Kevin Kester in the group’s combined response with the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) and the Public Lands Council (PLC).
Anti-grazing environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project protested the vote, variously calling it a partisan attack on the ESA and characterizing it as an effort to kill wolves.
Judicial review
The bill’s limitations on judicial review sparked considerable response, as well. On the one hand, supporters argued out that litigants have undermined the ESA by reversed past delisting decisions in the courts. On the other hand, opponents argued the vote and other legislative efforts to delist wolves undermine the ESA. Both sides claimed the ESA and scientists support their position.
Public Lands Council President Bob Skinner said he and other ranching leaders were grateful to see the bill’s passage but stressed that “if the ESA process was working as originally intended, species-specific legislation like H.R. 6784 would not be necessary.”
“Activists should not be allowed to abuse technicalities in the judicial system to force a relisting—especially when sound science and hard data clearly illustrate that it is time for these wolves to come off the list.”
Grijalva argued the complete opposite position.
“The bill short-circuits the science-based ESA process of determining when species are recovered to the point that protections can be removed,” he said in the House Committee on Natural Resources dissenting opinion.
“Wolves still face persecution from hunters and agricultural interests and are only beginning to recolonize areas where they were long a critical part of ecosystems.”
Peterson, the lone Democrat cosponsor of H.R. 6784, decried what he called “propaganda” about the bill.
“We followed the Endangered Species Act. We did what was said, the scientists said we recovered and they delisted the wolves. These were scientists that did it, it wasn’t any politician. You had a group out there, these extreme environmentalists and others, who have captured our party, went to a judge in Washington D.C. that has no idea what’s going on at all and convinced that judge that the wolves had not recovered because they had not been reestablished all the way to Des Moines, Iowa.”
Other wolves
The bill specifically does not apply to the Mexican wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf. Mexican wolves have been captively bred and released into Arizona and New Mexico in efforts to re-establish a wild population.
Conversely, the bill does not address the red wolf, leaving its legislative fate unclear. The red wolf is variously considered its own species of wolf, a subspecies of gray wolf, or a coyote/wolf hybrid with ongoing debate about its proper taxonomy.
Captive breeding and release efforts of red wolves into North Carolina have not been successful at establishing an independent population. The biggest threat to their continued existence is interbreeding with coyotes, which are plentiful in the state.
The bill now moves onto the Senate. It is not listed as active legislation on the Senate’s calendar. The Senate is expected return to session on Nov. 26. — WLJ
