Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty, said on April 1 that the organization called on Congress to include a provision in the budget reconciliation package requiring endangered species listings to automatically expire after ten years unless federal regulators justify continued listing.
The proposal seeks to address concerns about the effectiveness and credibility of the Endangered Species Act. According to American Stewards of Liberty, indefinite listings can have implications for private property and local economies without corresponding conservation gains. The group said the ten-year automatic delisting provision would require demonstration of ongoing need for federal intervention and is intended to tie listings to measurable outcomes. The policy aligns with the fiscal and regulatory scope of reconciliation.
Byfield said, "Right now, there is no meaningful off-ramp. Species are listed, and in many cases, they stay listed regardless of recovery progress or changing conditions. This is about restoring credibility to the law. If recovery is the goal, then the system should be structured to achieve and recognize it, not avoid it," according to American Stewards of Liberty.
Data from the Property and Environment Research Center indicates that only 57 species have recovered and been delisted out of more than 1,700 under the Endangered Species Act since 1973. This represents a recovery rate of approximately 3%. According to the report, many species remain on the list long after their projected recovery dates.
Analyses show that the average time for a species to be delisted due to recovery is around 30 years. However, hundreds of species have listings that have exceeded their expected recovery, according to reports by High Country News.
Byfield became involved in property rights advocacy after her family entered into legal disputes with federal land management agencies. In 1992, she founded Stewards of the Range, which later merged with another group in 2009 to form American Stewards of Liberty. She has served as executive director since then and has testified before Congress on issues related to endangered species policy.
