Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar (and board member) Rob Glicksman is on Capitol Hill testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee on the Interior this afternoon at 2 pm ET. The hearing will focus on “barriers to delisting” of species under the Endangered Species Act.
He’ll cover four major points in his testimony, which he summarizes thusly:
First, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has achieved considerable success in achieving its conservation goals. Second, budgetary constraints have prevented the two agencies that oversee implementation of the statute, the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), from compiling an even better track record. Third, citizen participation in ESA implementation has played an important role in promoting the statute’s goals. Fourth, Congress in 1973 had good reasons for allocating to the federal government the primary responsibility for implementing the ESA (although it also sought to solicit state participation, accommodate state wildlife and water resource policies, and encourage federal-state partnerships), and those reasons remain just as valid today as they were then.
With respect to his second topic — budget constraints on the FWS and NMFS — he says,
For more than 20 years, Congress has funded the ESA through annual appropriations at levels inadequate to enable the FWS to comply with its statutory duties on a timely basis. As one researcher succinctly put it, the “agencies responsible for recovery of listed species are faced with an increasing workload and decreasing resources.” …
Instead of continuing or increasing programs that assist states and private parties in conserving listed species, Congress is cutting or ending these effective programs. For example, Congress has balked at reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund despite overwhelming support from the states. Money from the Fund helps states and federal agencies protect habitat for listed species. The House also voted to cut funds for the Conservation Stewardship Program, which among other things helps farmers protect biodiversity on their land.
You can read Glicksman's full testimony, here.
The subcommittee will hear from the FWS Director Dan Ashe in a separate hearing tomorrow morning at 9 am.
Showing 2,834 results
Matthew Freeman | April 20, 2016
Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar (and board member) Rob Glicksman is on Capitol Hill testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee on the Interior this afternoon at 2 pm ET. The hearing will focus on “barriers to delisting” of species under the Endangered Species Act. He’ll cover four major points in his testimony, which he […]
James Goodwin | April 19, 2016
Several weeks ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivered perhaps the most important speech on the U.S. regulatory system in recent memory at a forum on regulatory capture organized by the Administrative Conference of the United States. In it, she described how the regulatory system was not working for the people as it should be – or […]
Evan Isaacson | April 19, 2016
Yesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Program released its latest estimate of nutrient and sediment pollution in the Bay watershed. The annual model run of the program's Watershed Model shows that the estimated nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads decreased by three percent, three percent, and four percent, respectively, compared to 2014 levels. These are important improvements, but […]
Eric Panicco | April 18, 2016
Eric Panicco, a candidate for Master of Arts in Sustainability at Wake Forest University, is undertaking an independent study for CPR Member Scholar Sidney Shapiro. On August 3 of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Clean Power Plan. It was a historic moment for President Obama, one he commemorated by observing, “We’re […]
Matthew Freeman | April 15, 2016
Center for Progressive Reform President Robert Verchick has an op-ed in The New Orleans Advocate this morning about Gulf Coast efforts to prepare for the effects of climate change that we’re too late to prevent. A New Orleans resident himself, Verchick and his family suffered through Katrina, so he knows what he’s talking about when […]
Lisa Heinzerling | April 14, 2016
How Justice Scalia’s Last Canon Is Unhinging Statutory Interpretation Justice Antonin Scalia was, as much as anything else, known for insisting that the text of a statute alone – not its purposes, not its legislative history – should serve as the basis for the courts’ interpretation of the statute. Justice Scalia promoted canons of statutory […]
Brian Gumm | April 13, 2016
NEWS RELEASE: New Paper Showcases Best Practices for Protecting, Empowering Vulnerable Gulf Coast Communities in the Face of Climate Change Most Americans understand the importance of curbing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent a climate catastrophe in the future. But many communities are already feeling the effects of our warming planet. Impacts on the Gulf Coast are […]
Evan Isaacson | April 11, 2016
Last month, the California Air Resources Board released a draft Aliso Canyon Methane Leak Climate Impacts Mitigation Program. The program comes in response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s January 6 proclamation that Southern California Gas be held responsible for mitigating the estimated 100,000 tons of methane released from the gas storage facility at Porter Ranch, which […]
James Goodwin | April 8, 2016
Over the last few years, deregulatory advocates have pursued a well-trodden path for advancing their anti-safeguard agenda: Publish a large, glossy “study,” replete with impressive mathiness, that purports to measure the impacts of regulation but in fact provides a highly skewed portrayal by consciously ignoring the many benefits that regulations provide. (For example, see here, […]