The Endangered Species Act Under Attack in Congress

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Western Caucus today announced a package of nine bills to gut the Endangered Species Act, the most effective law for protecting wildlife from extinction.

This package of legislation purports to “modernize” the Endangered Species Act in order to better protect species. Instead, it prioritizes politics over science at the expense of our nation’s natural heritage. Taken together, these bills would dramatically weaken this impressively successful, wildly popular cornerstone conservation law, by transferring undue authority to state officials, undermining the ESA’s science-based listing process, and undercutting citizens' ability to enforce the law.

Following is a statement from Nora Apter, legislative advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council:

“Our most effective law for protecting wildlife in danger of extinction is once again under attack in the House of Representatives. The false pretense of ‘modernizing’ a law that has kept 99 percent of species under its care from going extinct is a dirty strategy for gutting a law for greed.  The Endangered Species Act works and any effort to weaken it will be fought vigorously.”

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.