Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) is leading a trio of Republican senators in introducing three new Congressional Review Act resolutions to overturn President Joe Biden’s expansion of Endangered Species Act protections.
Republicans argue the rules implemented under Biden are overly burdensome and economically harmful.
Lummis joined Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) in introducing the resolutions, which were previewed first to the Washington Examiner.
The CRAs would overturn rules put forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Biden administration, all of which rolled back Endangered Species Act reforms implemented by President Donald Trump in 2019.
The first CRA would roll back Biden’s reinstatement of so-called blanket rule protections, which automatically extend endangered species-level protections to species listed only as threatened and requires they be managed with tailored plans.
The administration “needs a plan. And treating these [threatened] species as endangered actually impairs the execution of a plan,” Lummis, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, told the Washington Examiner in an interview Wednesday.
The second CRA would restore interagency coordination between FWS and NOAA on Critical Protections Designations for endangered species — allowing them to share information about ESA listings and their economic effects and giving them more flexibility in determining what designates a “critical habitat” protection for those species. It would effect a return to 2019 regulations established under Trump.
The final CRA would overturn reforms implemented under Biden to Section 7 of the ESA to require NOAA or FWS consultation for any project or action that might affect any ESA-listed species or habitat. The CRA would narrow its scope, requiring FWS and NOAA sign-off only when the action is “reasonably certain to occur” in the harm of an ESA-listed population.
Republicans argue these restorations are crucial to preventing overregulation of public and private land in the West, where state economies depend heavily on the acres for purposes of agriculture, farming, and fossil fuel production.
“Biden bureaucrats are abusing their authority to push through stifling regulations that will hurt our economy and burden private property owners,” Ricketts said in a statement. “These one-size-fits-all rules hurt landowners and refuse to take into account how they will hurt local economies.”
The Biden policies “are the result of fear-mongering” by environmental groups, and “of course, can’t be quantified because they are the worst case scenarios,” Lummis told the Washington Examiner. “The better approach is to find out what is reasonably likely to occur, and then use that as the basis for coming up with a plan for the recovery of a species.”
The new effort comes as Republicans in Congress seek to put on record their opposition to certain Biden-era efforts ahead of the 2024 elections. Unlike other efforts, CRA resolutions can be brought up for an expedited Senate vote by any member, bypassing the filibuster, which traditionally allows a minority of 40 or more to hold up bills.
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In recent weeks, the Biden administration has rushed through rules in an effort to prevent them from being canceled if Republicans take control of Congress and the presidency next year. CRAs only apply to rules that were implemented within a certain time frame.
The resolutions were co-sponsored by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mike Lee (R-UT), John Barrasso (R-WY), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Katie Britt (R-AL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and John Hoeven (R-ND).
