Washington, D.C. - Today, Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Peter DeFazio (D-OR) responded to four bills that would add layers of bureaucracy, waste limited agency resources, and divert efforts to recover species under the Endangered Species Act.
“As with a number of issues before the committee, there has been the potential for balanced, reasonable compromise to modernize the Endangered Species Act. But again, the majority chose to forgo bipartisan collaboration and instead continue with the politicking. The four Republican bills that we marked up today are not serious attempts to reform one of the most important environmental laws of our generation-they were produced by the partisan ESA Working Group. Democrats offered reasonable, common sense amendments to address a few of the major issues with some of these bills, but unfortunately the Majority rejected them," said Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Peter DeFazio (D-OR).
Background on the HR 4315, 4316, 4317, and 4318 and Democratic amendments can be found here.
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