[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 103 (Monday, June 14, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2736-H2741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FAILURE OF THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, before I begin, I ask unanimous consent
that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and
extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the topic of
my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Washington?
There was no objection.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, nearly 50 years ago, President Nixon
signed the Endangered Species Act into law, which was designed to do
two things: Number 1, prevent species from going extinct; and Number 2,
promote their recovery back to health and healthy populations.
Since then, hundreds of plants and animals have joined the endangered
or threatened species list, spurring conservation and recovery efforts
at all levels of government.
While this landmark species protection law is well-intentioned and
has accomplished many good things, it has become an endless source of
conflict and, unfortunately, many rightly consider it a dismal failure.
The Endangered Species Act hasn't seen meaningful reform since 1973.
And since then, less than 3 percent of species have recovered and been
delisted.
The Congressional Western Caucus has long advocated for improvements
to modernize the ESA and make it more effective for our species and
more transparent for the American people. My colleagues in the caucus
have advocated on behalf of the rural communities that we represent who
are severely impacted by the ESA listing decisions and who, in many
cases, are working in collaboration with private landowners, community
groups, Tribes, and local governments to promote successful species
recovery and land conservation.
And we have advocated to administration after administration the need
to follow the science and fulfill the congressional intent of the law,
which is to promote recovery of these species and then remove them from
the endangered species list.
That is why I am so proud to host this Special Order tonight, where
you will hear from several of my Western Caucus colleagues about
successful, locally led recovery efforts taking place across the
country; the different impacts that ESA listing decisions have had on
local communities and economies; and some of the legislative reforms
needed to finally bring the ESA into the 21st century.
Over the past few years, the Trump administration made great progress
by finalizing several updates to the ESA to modernize this bedrock law
and to improve our ability to protect endangered and threatened species
and celebrate our recovery successes.
The Trump administration created a transparent process for
designating critical habitat for listed species, and finalized a
commonsense definition that a critical habitat must indeed be critical
to the species at hand.
Who would have thought?
They streamlined and modernized the process for consultation between
government agencies to determine the scope of listing impacts,
including requiring the consideration of the economic impact a listing
could have on local economics.
Lastly, they finalized a rule that rewards State and landowners for
successful recovery actions by loosening mandated regulations on
species management as the species begin to recover and are down-listed
from endangered to threatened.
Unfortunately, earlier this month, the Biden administration announced
plans to rescind or reverse these improvements. This is exactly the
wrong direction we should be heading, Madam Speaker.
As we have seen over the past four decades, the ESA has become a
weapon used by extreme environmentalists and serial litigators to slow
or halt critical economic development and land management projects in
rural communities throughout the United States. From preventing the
restoration of our forests, to creating overburdensome roadblocks for
domestic energy development, the ESA, in its current form, simply does
more harm than good.
Oftentimes, these ESA regulations negatively impact the very people
we need as conservation partners. Through land use restrictions,
reduced property values, and costly permitting requirements, unilateral
and far-sweeping listing decisions remove incentive for these local
partners to come to the table. In effect, it makes enemies out of the
people who are most critical to our efforts instead of treating these
species like the assets they are to our local lands. We must empower
our local, State, and Tribal partners to collaborate on comprehensive
recovery and conservation efforts, and we know this to be true.
More stringent regulations will not lead to more successful species
recovery. In rural America, we value the responsible management of
plants, animals, and native species, but we have to do so in a way that
doesn't destroy our economies, decimate our lands or leave our
communities vulnerable to natural disasters.
We need flexible tools, not one-size-fits-all regulations from the
Federal
[[Page H2737]]
Government to be successful in our shared goal of recovery of our
Nation's endangered and threatened species.
Tonight, we are here to raise the voices of rural communities that
are impacted by the ESA and to make our message heard.
Madam Speaker, I yield to my good friend from the great State of
Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee
on Energy and Mineral Resources for the Committee on Natural Resources.
Mr. STAUBER. Madam Speaker, I rise with my colleagues in the
Congressional Western Caucus to discuss abuse of the Endangered Species
Act, a law passed with good intentions, but weaponized by radicals to
fight hunting, fishing, mining, logging, transportation, and our way of
life.
In my district in northern Minnesota, the dramatic rise of the gray
wolf has posed a threat to our deer herds, our livestock, and our
family pets. The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association considers it a top
threat to our hunting way of life.
Meanwhile, it wreaks havoc on our cattle ranchers throughout northern
Minnesota. One rancher lost 26 cows to wolves in just 1 year.
In 2013, then-President Obama's Fish and Wildlife Service rightfully
delisted the gray wolf.
{time} 2045
Why? Because the gray wolf had clearly recovered. It had exceeded
population targets by as much as 300 percent. And, no, this is not a
statistic from hunters or ranchers. This is straight out of a 2013 Fish
and Wildlife Service press release.
Dan Ashe, Obama's Fish and Wildlife Service then-Director, when the
gray wolf was delisted, stated: ``An exhaustive review of the latest
scientific information . . . shows that we have accomplished that goal
with the gray wolf.''
Madam Speaker, what happened next? Activist judges in Washington,
D.C., put the gray wolf back on the list just a couple of years later.
And when Obama's Fish and Wildlife Service Director took a well-
paying job with an activist group, his tune suddenly changed, and he
wanted the gray wolf back on the endangered species list.
Fortunately, the Trump administration did the right thing, listening
to the science, and delisted the gray wolf last fall.
However, the same problem with the ESA and activist groups remain,
and it is widespread.
Recently, the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list the moose as
an endangered species because their numbers are above targets. This
time, the radical activist lawyers said the quiet part out loud. In a
Minneapolis Star Tribune article, the Center for Biological Diversity,
which has significant influence over House Democrats, stated: ``Now it
is going to be a lot harder to ensure that things like mines . . .
don't go forward without protections for moose in place.''
Could their intentions be any more clearer, Madam Speaker?
The purpose of the ESA is pretty straightforward: to protect
endangered species. Tragically, the ESA is not always being used for
conservation. It is being weaponized as a way to advance the far left's
radical agenda. It is being used by the Green New Deal Democrat Party
to stop progress.
We need to update the Endangered Species Act to allow us to hunt,
fish, mine, harvest timber, farm, and for other responsible uses. Let's
reform the Endangered Species Act and maintain our way of life.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Stauber and appreciate him
bringing his perspective from the great State of Minnesota.
Like he and his constituents, we in the State of Washington also
understand the impact of the gray wolf and what impact it can have on
our local ranchers, farmers, and communities. I thank him very much for
his work on bringing control back to the State, where it should be.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr.
Westerman), who is the Republican ranking member on the Committee on
Natural Resources.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington
not only for holding this important forum tonight but also for his
tremendous leadership with the Western Caucus, where we look at real
solutions for rural America.
Madam Speaker, America is blessed with an incredible abundance of
wildlife. Many of these animals have become icons of our country. Look
no further than the majestic bald eagle, the national symbol of freedom
and American pride.
With such rich biodiversity, we have a responsibility to respect and
protect the species that call the United States home. When President
Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law in 1973, its stated
intent was simple: protect wildlife most at risk of extinction.
While the law had just intentions, ambiguous language and lawsuits
have allowed special interest groups to hijack the ESA, using it as a
weapon against any projects or actions they oppose. This has had a
particularly devastating impact on rural economies across the country
as red-tape lawsuits block important projects and essential agency
actions.
One example of this, as my colleagues from California know, is
continual ESA lawsuits over the 3-inch Delta smelt that have diverted
trillions of gallons of water away from farmers in the San Joaquin
Valley of California to create a man-made drought and double-digit
unemployment in recent years.
Despite these diversions, the fish populations of the Delta smelt
continue decreasing, and more farmers are throwing in the towel because
of the uncertainty.
We can find another example in the Pacific Northwest. The 1990
listing of the northern spotted owl economically devastated rural
communities in Oregon and Washington by virtually decimating the timber
industry in the region. The collapse of the timber industry has
actually hurt the northern spotted owl by making these forests into
dense, overgrown powder kegs. Now, decades later, Americans are paying
higher prices for building materials because much of our mill
infrastructure was wiped out, never to return.
ESA litigation has also prevented delisting of animals that have
fully recovered, like the grizzly bear. The Western States that house
grizzly bears undertook a herculean effort to recover them, to the
point that the Fish and Wildlife Service found that grizzly bears in
the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Northern Continental Divide
Ecosystem are fully recovered.
This is not a new issue, as they first moved to delist the Greater
Yellowstone population back in 2007. However, due to ESA lawsuits from
radical special interest groups, both population segments are still
listed.
Unfortunately, examples like this now fill the endangered species
list. This is diverting critical resources away from animals that
actually need protection.
This should be common sense. If an animal recovers and is thriving in
its environment, it should be delisted, plain and simple. Yet, Democrat
lawmakers and administration officials are so intent on pleasing the
whims of special interest groups that they refuse to follow the science
and to look at the facts. We must work together to close these
loopholes.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced it is rolling
back significant ESA reforms. It is another example of how out of touch
this administration is with rural Americans and endangered species as
well. Under these policies, rural America is now what is in the most
danger.
Many of the reforms put in place under President Trump were born out
of input from local communities most affected by the policies created
in Washington. Yet, this administration seems bent on reinstating
burdensome regulations in order to open up the door for environmental
groups to again weaponize the ESA.
Republican or Democrat, we can all agree that we want our most
vulnerable species not just to survive but to thrive for generations.
Using the ESA as a political battering ram will not accomplish this
goal.
We must return the ESA to its original intent: protecting wildlife
that is most at risk. Anything more than that is a bureaucratic
overreach and a giveaway to radical environmental groups.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for hosting this forum.
[[Page H2738]]
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I really thank my friend for his
leadership on this very important issue.
As was mentioned earlier, the ESA has a dismal recovery rate of just
3 percent. We have to work hard to strengthen this law in order to
provide real results.
We ought to be incentivizing private investment in species recovery,
streamline decision-making, and promote the comprehensive efforts of
State and local governments as well as Tribes.
I want to just say I greatly appreciate the thoughts of the good
gentleman from the Committee on Natural Resources.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird), one
of my fellow farmers in Congress and a war veteran. I thank him for
being with us tonight.
Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the State
of Washington for allowing me to have the opportunity to participate in
this Special Order.
Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the communities and the
residents of west central Indiana to share our experience with the
Endangered Species Act.
As an animal scientist and a farmer, I am a lifelong conservationist.
I value the well-intentioned effort of the ESA to protect and conserve
our Nation's most iconic species that define our landscapes and have
shaped our heritage. Instead, however, I have repeatedly found myself
discouraged with the implementation of this important act.
As I shared here on the House floor a few weeks ago, Lakes Freeman
and Shafer, near Monticello, Indiana, have been a popular tourist
destination. It has been home to many small businesses, attractions,
and a vibrant local economy for generations of Hoosiers. Unfortunately,
though, a series of droughts and a tangle of bureaucratic red tape
involving the ESA has made a devastating impact on this community.
Following a listing on the endangered species list more than a decade
ago of mussels found in the Tippecanoe River, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service subsequently ordered a new higher volume of water to
consistently flow out of the Oakdale Dam that forms Lake Freeman, in an
effort to preserve these now-protected mussels. This executive action
by unelected bureaucrats has crippled our once-thriving community.
Businesses like the Tall Timbers Marina, local resorts, and the Madam
Carroll cruise boat, as seen here, report catastrophic losses to
revenue and depleted financial reserves.
Homeowners along the lake report ruined seawalls, dried-up wells, and
slashed resale values, even during this hottest real estate market of
our lifetime.
With zero regard for the economic and environmental catastrophe
created, the Fish and Wildlife Service refuses to negotiate and
continues to enforce a mandate designed to protect a population of
mussels that have likely already died from the bacterial overload
created when this 1,500-acre lake was reduced to a puddle, killing
practically all the wildlife that used to call Lake Freeman home.
Due to years of misinterpretation of the law, unchecked actions by
unelected bureaucrats, and radical environmentalism, this once valuable
law, designed to conserve America's natural beauty, has instead proved
time and time again to be a death knell to actual ecosystems and the
nearby communities.
The Service consistently hides behind its ability to point fingers at
other agencies, whose compliance is obligated by the ESA as a means to
avoid rational management of the act and the species it protects.
As thought leaders and policymakers, we have an important
responsibility to preserve the natural beauty that God has bestowed on
our land. The Endangered Species Act was established with that mission
at heart but has gone frightfully astray.
It has been 40 years since the enactment of the ESA. Now more than
ever, it is time to modernize this important law, to fix its broken
parts to better serve its purpose and to allow for responsible
solutions to disasters like Lake Freeman.
I hope my colleagues will join me in this valuable effort.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Baird and appreciate his
leadership on this important issue.
From farming to ranching to mining to forestry to recreational
opportunities, the far-reaching impacts of the Endangered Species Act
go wide. I thank him for bringing up those very important points.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann), my
good friend and colleague from the town of Quinter.
Mr. MANN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington very
much for his leadership with the Western Caucus and for hosting this
Special Order tonight.
Madam Speaker, I rise today, with my colleagues from the Western
Caucus, to highlight progress made in the lesser prairie chicken
population recovery through voluntary conservation efforts in Kansas.
The lesser prairie chicken is a North American species native to the
grasslands and southern Great Plains across New Mexico, Colorado,
Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. These birds use the open areas of the
plains to perform their courtship dance and build their nests on the
ground, away from any roads or structures.
{time} 2100
My district, the Big First of Kansas, is home to the most extensive
range and largest population of the lesser prairie-chicken.
Since the 1990s, there have been concerns regarding the lesser
prairie-chicken population size and habitat, and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has considered listing the bird under the Endangered
Species Act on multiple occasions.
The Fish and Wildlife Service cited habitat fragmentation as one of
the reasons for its population decline, as much of the area is used for
cropland, grazing, and oil and gas development. However, we have seen
perhaps the most significant population changes tied to the prolonged
periods of drought across the chicken's range.
At its lowest, the lesser prairie-chicken population fell to
approximately 15,400 birds during the worst phase of the 2013 drought.
As the population declined, stakeholders across the five states began
conversations and plans to address this issue and partnered with local
landowners and industry. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and
Tourism teamed up with farmers and ranchers, the Lesser Prairie-Chicken
Interstate Working Group, and other midwestern States throughout the
bird's range to initiate conservation plans.
In their work to help the lesser prairie-chicken, Kansans have
conserved more than 40,000 acres of habitat through the Conservation
Reserve Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private
investments. Many of the voluntary conservation efforts have been
directly funded by farmers and ranchers, the energy sector, and other
landowners. As stakeholders make conservation changes, it is vital that
the practices are mutually beneficial to both the lesser prairie-
chicken and agriculture and energy producers.
These voluntary efforts have yielded excellent results, with the
lesser prairie-chicken population up to more than 34,400 birds in 2020.
In Kansas, the population has been stable to increasing since 2013,
while the entire population has been increasing since 2016. The
population growth has occurred thanks to voluntary efforts, but also
because of increased rainfall, which has also benefited many of the
agricultural producers in the area.
And so it is especially alarming and disappointing to see the Fish
and Wildlife Service release a plan to list the lesser prairie-chicken
under the Endangered Species Act as threatened in the northern
population and endangered in the southern population.
The potential ESA listing flies in the face of years spent and
millions invested in voluntary conservation and goes against the clear
data that the population has increased under those efforts. As usual,
President Biden believes Federal overreach is the answer to a local and
State issue, and his administration lacks trust in private landowners
to take care of their own land.
I strongly and vehemently oppose the listing of the lesser prairie-
chicken, and I will continue to push back on the
[[Page H2739]]
Biden administration's egregious overreach.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much Mr. Mann's
participation in this Special Order but also his leadership on this
very important issue. He gives clear examples in his own district of
seeing the success in the recovery of, in his case, the lesser prairie-
chicken through, I think I heard him say, voluntary conservation
efforts.
It just underscores the need for us to be able to recognize all of
the efforts that are being taken on these species' behalf, utilize the
best available science, and consider all efforts that are being made
when assessing these listing decisions.
I thank Mr. Mann, and I appreciate very much his contribution.
Now, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms.
Tenney), a prospective member of the Western Caucus, one that we would
be delighted to have her membership, but certainly appreciate very much
her participation this evening to help us illustrate this very
important issue to the American public. We are anxious to have her here
this evening.
Ms. TENNEY. Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues today urging
commonsense policies to carry out the goals of the Endangered Species
Act while allowing our communities to flourish.
As stewards of our planet, we each have a responsibility to care for
the environment and protect our wildlife while also caring for and
addressing the needs of our human environment, which often gets left
out in this conversation.
However, today it seems more difficult than ever to have balanced
discussions. Deeply entrenched special interests are increasingly using
our small communities as pawns for their larger political ambitions.
Unfortunately, the bureaucrats in both the Federal and State
Government, especially in New York, have become more powerful than the
people, and that is unacceptable.
I want to bring to your attention what is happening in my community
today. I represent New York's 22nd District, which stretches all the
way from Lake Ontario, yes, a Great Lake, to the Pennsylvania border in
the heart of beautiful, pastoral, upstate New York.
On April 16, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation ordered an immediate halting
of a routine annual dredging project to clear ingress and egress into
the lovely inlet of Sandy Pond, which is on the eastern shore of Lake
Ontario, due to the sighting of a piping plover, a small shoreline bird
that weighs less than 2 ounces. Even though there are over 10,000 of
these birds today throughout the Great Plains and eastern seaboard,
they remain listed as an endangered species in the Great Lakes region.
The annual dredging project maintains safe ingress and egress into
Sandy Pond. The seasonal dredging was one week from completion before
the forced government closure. There are several hundred homes and
campsites along this beautiful spot on Lake Ontario known as Sandy
Pond, where people from around the Northeast have enjoyed this
incredibly beautiful and unique place for over a century.
The closure has been devastating to local businesses, residents, and
visitors, who have already been suffering from the disruptions of the
COVID-19 pandemic last summer. Property values alone in this region are
in excess of $150 million, not including all the business revenues and
sales tax lost from people coming to this region from really all around
the Northeast and Canada.
Despite this harsh Federal action, the two--there are now two--piping
plovers' nests are not even close to the dredging site. I know because
I went to the site, and I walked off the distance from the dredging
site to the beginning of the designated habitat. The distance was
clearly over 3,000 feet, just to get to the beginning of the site,
where the birds are much farther down.
I want to emphasize that the community cares deeply about the natural
environment. They seek to preserve this natural environment and its
natural splendor for generations to come, and they deeply care about
the continued growth and continued population of this piping plover.
The community has proposed a simple dredging, an economy-mode
dredging, which would be less intrusive, to dispose of the sand in an
alternative location that would be far away. This is a very modest and
safe proposal. It is respectful and preserves the nesting site to the
bird, and it is a perfectly reasonable accommodation.
Unfortunately, the Federal and State bureaucrats have dug in and
refuse to compromise, despite the fact that dredging can begin again
safely and responsibly without threatening the life or the habitat of
the birds.
The Federal and State agencies have been unable to support their
position yet with data or facts. We have had numerous conversations
with them, public meetings, and press conferences, and they refuse to
offer any opportunity for the residents to have some relief.
All the while, the community at Sandy Pond continues to suffer, and
the harm could be irreparable harm as the situation grows more dire
each day, as the safe passage into Sandy Pond to and from Lake Ontario
becomes impossible.
The piping plover, interestingly, has not been seen in this part of
Sandy Pond. Really it is sort of a rare resident. And it has been
determined that actually piping plovers like dredged sand. It unearths
minerals and nutrients for them, and they tend to be flocking now to
these nesting sites. Sadly, a few years ago one of the pairs that did
show up was killed by a fox, so we were unable to save that particular
pair.
There are far too many communities that have suffered from the whims
of bureaucrats in Washington and Albany who just don't seem to care and
seem to be hiding behind many of these rules and regulations when there
are reasonable alternatives that will preserve the natural environment
as well as the human environment.
I am concerned that to make matters worse the Biden administration is
barreling down a path of appeasement to the left lobbyists and special
interests.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already announced they are
repealing recent reforms to the Endangered Species Act put in place
under the last administration--and thank you for acknowledging the
changes that were made. These changes will enact greater economic costs
while doing very little to offer any additional conservation
protections for the environment.
Our communities need reasonable compromises to ensure the prosperity
and enjoyment of our natural environment for all. This includes the
economy as well as the wildlife and the natural environment. The
Federal Government must be committed to this outcome as well as the
State government.
That is why I rise today, in support of targeted reforms to the
Endangered Species Act that provide for commonsense solutions that will
protect the natural environment for all species.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank Ms. Tenney for illustrating what
is necessary common sense and finding a balance between protecting
species as well as protecting a region's economic stability. I thank
her very much for her leadership in that overall picture. We look
forward to continuing to work with her.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr.
LaMalfa), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Conservation and
Forestry of the Committee on Natural Resources.
{time} 2110
Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from the State of
Washington, a good friend and chairman of our Western Caucus. I
appreciate the time and the effort to have this time of education here
tonight on the House floor, and for those who would watch and want to
actually learn what goes on.
So where do we start on the Endangered Species Act?
Passed in 1973, signed by Republican President Richard Nixon.
Now, if you were to listen to the rhetoric any time Republicans want
to talk about reforming the Endangered Species Act or doing things that
make sense, I think, out in the woods or with water storage, with
mining the critical minerals we are going to need for a lot of these
idealistic views, we are going to have more and more use of
electricity, you would think that we were
[[Page H2740]]
going to be the plunderers of the land. Completely not the case.
The things that are going on right now in the time of drought we have
in the West, in my home State of California, and the ongoing problems
we have with nonmanaged timber lands, U.S. forest lands, and the
resulting effect that has on private lands with the bad neighbors of
U.S. lands are typically to them.
If we are in a time of drought, we need to up our game more so on
forestry, forest management, thinning, and using these materials for
the good of people.
We had a toilet paper shortage months ago, as ridiculous as that
sounds in a first-world country like the United States, yet we are
burning millions of acres every year. You could trace a lot of this
back to the misuse, the abuse of the Endangered Species Act to stop and
block the type of work we need to be doing.
We have had hundreds of thousands of acres of fire like over there on
the Western Coast, north coast of California. They try to put in a
project after a 400,000-acre burn to do a minimal amount, 7,000 acres
of clean up, of restoration, of removing some of the dead trees and
brush and other things that were left behind along roadways and
somewhere around communities, et cetera. Environmental lawsuits come in
and stop them from doing 7,000 acres, less than 2 percent out of the
fire.
So what is the solution to this? Just watch these ghost trees stay
there, watch the brush grow up around all this and become the next
tinderbox for the next fire in 5 or 7 years?
That seems to be the solution by those on the far left that use the
Endangered Species Act as a weapon to stop progress for people, as well
as nature, as well as the environment.
California is in the throes of drought right now big time. Our
reservoirs are way down from just 2 years ago when they were all
practically full, and 2 years before that topped off, too. You may
recall Lake Oroville, the Oroville Dam had the spillway break apart in
the early part of 2017, because the lake was actually flowing over the
top of the emergency spillway. The dam is in fine shape. The spillway
has been rebuilt. And we have stored a lot of water between then and
now.
So what has gone on?
So much water has been released out to the Pacific Ocean and not used
for people use, for agricultural use or even smart environmental use.
The usage of the Endangered Species Act as a weapon has devastated so
much of agriculture in California, which maybe people don't realize
that 90 percent of certain types of crops, the vegetable crops that the
United States people use come from California. Most of the almonds that
you would use come from California.
Where is this going to come from if California is out of business
because of the misuse and abuse of the Endangered Species Act, because
someone might decide the coho salmon up in the Klamath Basin is more
valuable than the sucker fish in the Klamath Lake or the water foul
that gets forgotten about in the basin right around there?
Last year, we had a devastating kill on ducks and other wildlife in
that Klamath Basin area because they couldn't get water through the
agricultural system to where the refuges are for the ducks.
So what species is it we are going to pick?
The water in the Klamath project actually is assigned agriculture
use. The Klamath project added additional water storage space to the
existing Klamath Lake. Oregon courts have already ruled a couple times
that additional water belongs to agriculture. It is not something for
the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Interior to use in
order to make their equations work out on the failed application to
salmon in order to, in their idea, flush a virus out of the Klamath
River.
There is other evidence out there saying this is actually the
opposite of what you should do. That the virus--the C. shasta virus is
actually propagated by these additional flows. It is done year after
year after year, and the virus keeps returning. Maybe you need to let
that stuff dry out.
Also, the sucker fish that they are trying to protect in the lake,
the bottom feeding fish, too much water in the lake studies show by the
NAS--National Academy of Sciences--that too much water in that lake
makes them more vulnerable to predators and doesn't help the sucker
fish, which is good at living in a shallow amount of water. So we are
going in opposite directions.
Agriculture is devastated in the Klamath Basin. You are probably not
going to see the potatoes that In-N-Out Burger uses, horseradish, mint,
other products, as well as a lot of hay crops. They are not going to
happen this year, except for whatever water they can get from wells up
there; not going happen.
So when you see these things not on your store shelf anymore, you
will know that there is something going on, or when you see them highly
overpriced because we have to get them from some foreign country. You
are going to see the root causes because the California water supply
has been frittered away for other things besides useful purposes.
And this isn't in defiance of the ESA or helping species, but the
right science isn't being used. When you have one-term paper written
being used as gospel on the Klamath River as setting policy versus a
lot of other evidence--they want to remove the hydroelectric dams on
the Klamath River.
Now, when we are talking about drought in California, when we already
have lakes and reservoirs that are low, we have--Lake Oroville is going
to be at dead pool probably about mid-August.
Now, what is the temperature in mid-August?
Not quite near what my colleague in Arizona was speaking about, but
it is hot. So when we have this water supply run out, unable to produce
the hydroelectric power that we normally could because we could store
it, then we are going to have more power shortages, not just because of
power shutoffs. Because when the wind blows in California, now we have
to shut off the power because trees and things might blow branches into
the power lines and cause another devastating fire, like what is known
as the Camp Fire that devastated the town of Paradise, also in my
district.
Where is the common sense with this? Where is the common sense of
applying if we have drought conditions or, as the left likes to talk
about every other speech in this Chamber, climate change, the religion
of climate change?
Okay. If the blankety-blank climate is changing, why aren't we
storing more water since we, as people, are smart enough to know we
will need a water supply?
Why aren't we doing more to cause electricity be generated at that
water storage site?
Why aren't we doing more to trim and manage our forests that are
overcrowded?
Way too many trees per acre when they have been managed that way for
100 years.
Instead, we go on and on, and somebody comes up with a lawsuit to
prevent us from managing forests that way, prevent us from storing
additional water.
Not to mention when we talk about all cars have to become electric by
2035. I know a lot of people who aren't interested in buying electric
cars.
What happened to the choice people have of vehicles, the size and the
style they seek to have?
Yet we are hell-bent on electrifying everything. In the bay area,
they want to ban gas stoves and gas appliances in people's homes
because of some idealistic view of the environment and somehow tying
that back to the misuse of the Endangered Species Act.
All this ties together. The Endangered Species Act has been a great
tool to shut down the things we need to do, whether it is the expansion
of a highway, water storage. Shasta Dam right now in my district could
be raised 18 feet and add right away 640,000 acre-feet of water on
those full years. 640,000 acre-feet would be enough for 1.2 million
homes or 200,000 acres of crops that people watching this right now
like to have for their fresh fruits, for their salads, for their
vegetables, whatever it would be. And this is all going to be gone.
Do you like imported oil? Did you love the oil shortages back in the
seventies? Do you like this $4 or $5 or $6 gas and diesel we are having
right now?
[[Page H2741]]
Then you are going to love imported food.
And the Endangered Species Act has been used as a weapon to stop
people from farming, from timbering, from mining, basic things that we
need in order to have our electronics, to have copper for our wiring,
any of those things.
{time} 2120
It has been such a weapon since 1973, when it was passed with good
intentions. And I still think we need to have it. It saved the bald
eagle. It saved a lot of things. But also, its record overall, looking
at savings of endangered species, is a pretty low number. Why? Because
of ridiculous regulations and ridiculous biological opinions that don't
even connect the dots of how this is going to help the salmon in the
Klamath River or farther up in Washington where they want to rip some
of those dams out, too, and take away that hydroelectric power.
Where are we going to get the stored water? Where are we going to get
the hydroelectric power? You want to completely rely on what is a
narrow part of the grid, solar power or wind power? You can't even rely
on those, not for a major part of the grid. We need to have 24-7
electricity you can count on with either biomass, wood products stacked
on the deck, the waste wood that should come from the forestry that we
should be doing but aren't doing nearly fast enough, or natural gas
plants. We have so much gas in this country now because of hydraulic
fracturing, but that is vilified, too.
Pipelines bringing energy where it is needed is vilified, too,
because they are using an endangered species somewhere as a tool to
stop these developments.
Americans, enjoy these high prices you are getting right now. Enjoy
these shortages of electricity, of fuel, the higher cost of food, the
shortage of certain food items, because the usage of the Endangered
Species Act--and the usage of other environmental laws that have been
abused--that has been completely taken out of context from the original
intent like Congress passed back in 1973 or layered upon in recent
years.
We have to reform this process. It is not because Republicans want to
plunder the planet. That is so tiresome. Any time we talk about forest
management, oh, you are going to clear cut everything--I'm from
northern California--from here to Oregon, or somewhere else.
That is not it at all. Talk to any smart timber operation, and they
have 80- to 100-year plans for the private lands that they manage. If
you could fly over and look at how these timberlands are managed, you
can tell there is generally a checkerboard of private land versus
Federal land. You can see the different squares as they are managed
either before a fire, ongoing, or after a fire.
Just fly over one 3 years after a fire and see who has actually been
out there cleaning up their lands and trying to restore things versus
unmanaged Federal land, which is still the big mess it was right after
the fire. You will see the way the government is doing it, the way the
left is foisting these ridiculous rules and laws upon us and not
allowing us to do reasonable reform to bring just a little bit of
balance back into what was passed 50 years ago into what we have to
deal with.
At this time, when we are watching things go way off-kilter here
under this administration, I just remind those watching to look at the
root cause. It all ties together, the Endangered Species Act, other
environmental laws, other lawsuits, when you can't even turn around to
do a simple thing without somebody coming after you, suing you over it.
Look around your own home. Try to build a deck on your own home and
someone is going to try to environmentally slow you down on that these
days. Farmers are getting fined for building a pond on their land in
the Western States in order to retain a little more water for their
cattle.
When you see the high prices of these things all happening, look at
the root cause. Enjoy these high prices of fuel and electricity and the
shortage there, and know it is not because of our policies here but
because of the policies of misuse and abuse of endangered species laws,
of environmental laws, and all the lawsuits that go along with them.
Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, the gentleman has certainly been a true
leader on this issue and a passionate, experienced, and knowledgeable
voice. We appreciate his work on the Western Caucus.
We cannot continue to use a one-size-fits-all approach. That often
leads to mismanagement. The gentleman's examples and illustrations bear
that out to be true, and I look forward to continuing to work with him
on this issue.
As I mentioned earlier, the Biden administration has proposed a
massive rollback of recent improvements to the ESA, or the Endangered
Species Act. Many members from the caucus and across the country and I
are very concerned that these rollbacks will hamper our ability to work
with local leaders on species recovery.
I think it is also worth mentioning that the administration's actions
are in direct contrast to their report on the proposed 30 by 30
initiative, which aims to conserve 30 percent of our Nation's lands and
waters by the year 2030. Their report claims that as part of this
initiative, they will recognize and reward voluntary conservation
efforts of private landowners and recognize the contributions of
farmers and ranchers, forest owners, and others in rural America.
Instead, they are looking to impose even more Federal restrictions on
these conservation partners, and that is the opposite to the approach
that we should be taking.
Madam Speaker, quite frankly, it ignites even greater concerns about
the administration's so-called conservation initiative.
Madam Speaker, just to remind you, I started off the evening saying
that it was nearly 50 years ago that President Nixon signed the
Endangered Species Act into law. If you will recall, it was designed to
do two things: prevent species from going extinct and promote their
recovery back to health and healthy populations.
I think we have heard tonight that we can accomplish that, and we
need to accomplish that. A strong ESA and strong recovered species can
happen, but they don't have to happen at the expense of communities and
our economy. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
I think the arguments, the cases, and the illustrations that you have
heard tonight perfectly allow us to understand that.
Madam Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues from the Western Caucus
for participating tonight. This is a very important issue, something
that I think all of us in Congress can find a lot of common ground on.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
on successful reform of the Endangered Species Act.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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