Environmentalists celebrate rejection of bill amending Endangered Species Act
Environmental groups are celebrating this Earth Day after the U.S. House of Representatives pulled a bill amending the Endangered Species Act.
The House was set to vote Wednesday on the ESA Amendments Act (HR 1897) sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.
A group of officials, business owners and environmental advocates from Washington's 3rd Congressional District wrote to Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, in March and asked her to vote "no" on the bill. They warned that it could harm the region's outdoor recreation economy, fishing industry and businesses that depend on access to clean water.
"The Endangered Species Act is a highly successful law that has prevented nearly all listed species from extinction. This includes numerous runs of salmon and steelhead still present in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest Washington that support our fishing industry, the bald eagle that draws tourists to our region, and maintaining pristine upper watersheds supporting clean water our breweries and residents depend on," the group said.
On Monday, Perez said she still was considering her position on the bill.
"This bill is far from perfect, but we are waiting to see if the positives outweigh the negatives," Perez said Monday in an emailed statement.
On Wednesday morning, after the Republican-controlled House pulled the bill from the day's agenda, the Sierra Club - one of the nation's largest grassroots environmental groups - issued a news release praising the decision.
"As we celebrate Earth Day, we applaud the House of Representatives for declining consideration of this extremely harmful legislation," said Bradley Williams, the Sierra Club's deputy legislative director for wildlife and lands protection.
The Sierra Club warned that the bill would have "drastically weakened the Endangered Species Act by rewriting key portions of the (law and) decreasing protections for imperiled wildlife."
Williams said in the news release that the Sierra Club was encouraged to see the House pull the bill after outcry from both Republicans and Democrats.
"By rejecting a bill that would have gutted protections for endangered and threatened species across the country, Congress is sending a clear message that protecting wildlife is a shared American value, not a partisan issue," he said.
Perez was unavailable for comment Wednesday morning.
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