Montana congressional delegation comments on endangered species proposal

A Montana U.S. senator was in the spotlight when U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced proposed changes to administration of the Endangered Species Act, and the announcement split the responses of the delegation on party lines.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was one of the members of Congress cited in a "what they are saying" release the Interior Department issued after the announcement was made.

"This is a win for Montana and the West, and will help restore commonsense, science-based decision making when it comes to the Endangered Species Act," Daines said in the release. "These new rules will lead to more transparency, increased recovery of species, greater conservation, and will help take the decision making powers out of the hands of radical activists in the courtroom. I applaud the administration for taking this action."

Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., made similar comments.

"The Trump administration is taking important, common sense steps to bring guardrails to the broken and abused ESA process," he said in a statement emailed to the Havre Daily News. "These overdue changes simplify an ineffective process, bring sound science back into decision making, and are a victory for Montana farmers, ranchers, and landowners."

But Montana's Democratic Sen. Jon Tester expressed concerns.

"The ESA plays a critical role in supporting Montana's outdoor economy," he said in a statement emailed to the Havre Daily. "Any changes to the law should be science-based and take public input into account. I'm concerned this proposal by Secretary Bernhardt could undermine our Montana way of life."

The proposed changes to the act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973, include the government being able to attach a cost to protecting species, ending blanket protections for species newly listed as threatened and allowing the government to ignore possible impacts of climate change.

Members of the administration praised the proposed changes when they were announced.

"The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal - recovery of our rarest species. The Act's effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation," Bernhardt said. "An effectively administered act ensures more resources can go where they will do the most good: on-the-ground conservation."

"The revisions finalized with this rulemaking fit squarely within the president's mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public, without sacrificing our species' protection and recovery goals," said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. "These changes were subject to a robust, transparent public process, during which we received significant public input that helped us finalize these rules."

A lengthy list of groups also praised the proposal in the same release where Daines and other Republican members of Congress were cited, including National Association of Home Builders, Public Lands Council, American Agri-Women and Family Farm Alliance.

"The ESA affects cattle-producing families across the country," National Cattlemen's Beef Association President Jennifer Houston said in the release. "We are grateful to Secretary Bernhardt and the staff at FWS and NMFS for bringing this long-awaited regulatory relief to American cattle farmers and ranchers."

But other groups spoke againts the proposal. Some groups - and some states - said they will file lawsuits to stop the changes.

"The Endangered Species Act was born of a bipartisan commitment to secure a future for nature, and these changes fundamentally undermine America's long-held promise to protect our planet's amazing array of life." World Wildlife Fund Wildlife Policy Director Leigh Henry said in a statement issued by the organization. "The changes disregard decades of evidence proving the Endangered Species Act's effectiveness in conserving threatened wildlife and downplay the profound threat of climate-driven extinction.

"In May, a landmark U.N. report found that biodiversity losses can significantly harm global economic stability and that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction," Henry continued. "The U.S. Endangered Species Act has been a model for conservation efforts globally and weakening this effective law hamstrings U.S. ability to help save species from extinction."

The Sierra Club issued a release with multiple organizations speaking in opposition to the proposal, including National Parks Conservation Association, The Lands Council, International Fund for Animal Welfare and Born Free USA.

"At a time when nature is facing unprecedented challenges from a changing climate and the increasing sprawl of the human footprint on native habitats, weakening the Endangered Species Act is the last thing we should do," Western Watersheds Project Executive Director Erik Molvar said in the release. "The ESA is a law that has worked brilliantly well for many decades because it gets the politics out of the way and requires all decisions affecting the fate of rare and imperiled plants and animals to be based solely on science instead. The proposal to tinker with the law that saved species ranging from the bald eagle to the black-footed ferret to the peregrine falcon is a cynical move designed to permit the extinction of the Earth's rich diversity of life."

The final regulations submitted to the Federal Register can be found here: https://www.fws.gov/endangered/improving_ESA/regulation-revisions.html/.