{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://bentz.house.gov/media/press-releases/lummis-bentz-lead-colleagues-introducing-congressional-review-act-overturn", "Lummis, Bentz lead Colleagues in Introducing Congressional Review Act to Overturn Biden Rule on the Endangered Species Act", "2023-03-31", "2023", "2023-03", "Republican", "House", "OR", "Cliff Bentz", "B000668", "bentz.house.gov", "bentz", "https://bentz.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Senate Western Caucus Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) led 17 of her colleagues in introducing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to retain the regulatory definition of habitat within the Endangered Species Act (ESA). By defining habitat, this CRA will provide clarity and transparency to landowners and businesses in Wyoming and throughout the west.\n\n\u201cThere is an important distinction between \u2018habitat\u2019 and \u2018critical habitat\u2019 for an endangered species,\u201d said Lummis. \u201cBy scrapping the definition of habitat within the ESA, the Biden administration is causing chaos and confusion among private property owners throughout Wyoming and the west. Two-thirds of all endangered species are located on private lands, so private property owners need to be partners in species recover, not the enemy. This CRA will ensure that Wyoming landowners are not unfairly targeted by the administration and that habitat designations are based on science, not on politics.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration is once again burdening Wyoming farmers, ranchers and landowners with regulations that hurt our agriculture producers and reduces land value,\u201d said Barrasso. \u201cI\u2019m proud to join Sen. Lummis\u2019 effort to reinstate the Trump administration\u2019s rule to clearly define habitats under the Endangered Species Act.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy finalizing a new critical habitat designation, the Biden administration is once again increasing costs, creating more red tape, and ultimately making it more difficult to build here in America. We should be making it easier to achieve our conservation goals through clear definitions, but the Biden designation would only drive more uncertainty for landowners across our country. I appreciate Senator Lummis for her leadership in challenging this new rule, and will continue to support commonsense checks on this administration\u2019s misguided policies,\u201d Capito said.\n\n\u201cThe Biden administration has cast a net so broad that nearly anywhere could qualify as a critical habitat. This misguided definition will have far reaching effects on Idaho\u2019s farming, ranching, land management, and mining projects, and it will delay numerous projects vital to our rural communities. This resolution of disapproval provides the Senate with an opportunity to return some much needed common sense to critical habitat designation,\u201d said Risch.\n\n\u201cProviding an exact definition for \u2018habitat\u2019 is necessary for transparency and clarity as stakeholders make decisions regarding wildlife and proper management practices,\u201d said Crapo. \u201cThe Biden Administration\u2019s rollback of the definition of \u2018habitat\u2019 is unnecessary and only adds confusion when dealing with important wildlife issues.\u201d\n\n\u201cOnce again, President Biden has attempted to take a common-sense law intended to protect endangered species and use it to expand the power of executive bureaucrats to intrude on the lives of North Carolina\u2019s builders and job creators. I\u2019m proud to join Senator Lummis\u2019s CRA to stop this latest power grab,\u201d said Budd.\n\n\u201cOklahomans are more than willing to do their part to protect species on the endangered species list, but more and more often the rules and regulations for the Endangered Species Act are not rational,\u201d said Lankford. \u201cThe Critical Habitat rule gives the Biden Administration free rein to interpret any geographic area across the country\u2014not just the one a listed species currently occupies\u2014as a \u2018critical habitat\u2019 in need of federal protection under the ESA. This radical environmentalist proposal potentially impacts landowners, a variety of industries crucial to Oklahoma, jobs, and existing wildlife recovery efforts nationwide. Oklahomans are tired of the federal government picking animals and plants over people, especially when the ESA only has about a two percent success rate of species recovery since the 1970s. I want to protect our plants and wildlife, but I stand firmly against this rule.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis CRA is about pushing back on the overreaching Biden rule that doesn\u2019t respect private property rights and would lead to uncertainty for landowners when it comes to whether their property may be designated as critical habitat,\u201d said Hoeven.\n\n\u201cWe can all agree that safeguarding our environment and ensuring wildlife habitat is protected for future generations is important. There are commonsense measures we can take to support conservation without trampling on the rights of landowners. I\u2019m pleased to support this effort to block this overreaching regulation,\u201d said Boozman.\n\n\u201cFarmers and ranchers must be left to manage their land how they see fit,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cAs the original conservationists, who have worked for centuries to leave the world better than they found it and maintain our land for the enjoyment of their kids and grandkids, we cannot let overreaching and fluctuating habitat definitions undermine the great work our producers are doing. This Administration\u2019s regulatory overhaul of the ESA undermines our landowners and leaves them with a lot of uncertainty. That is why I am fully supporting this CRA that rolls back burdensome limitations on land use and costly mitigation requirements.\u201c\n\nSens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ted Budd (R-NC), James Lankford (R-OK), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Jim Risch (R-ID), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), John Boozman (R-AR), John Hoeven (R-ND), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) cosponsored the CRA.\n\nRep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) introduced a companion CRA in the U.S. House of Representatives alongside Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Matt Rosendale (R-MT), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), David Valadao (R-CA) and Ryan Zinke (R-MT).\n\n\u201cThe Endangered Species Act (ESA) is being misused, abused, and misapplied, and it is time to get to work on fixing this. If the ESA is to work properly, without bankrupting all businesses and the USA, federal agencies must follow the science and narrowly target their efforts in ways best suited for the species, while not destroying communities. The Biden Administration, when it rescinded the Trump Critical Habitat Rule, gave Washington bureaucrats the green light to designate critical habitat where the species in question had not been seen in decades. This action by the Biden Administration was not about conserving or protecting at risk species. It was about preventing human activities that the Biden Administration disagrees with, like forest management, livestock grazing, and other multiple uses of our public lands and waters in and upon millions of acres of public land. The Trump Administration\u2019s definition of habitat is scientifically based and meets the needs of both our environment and the people living within it. This measure will help to restore sanity to the implementation of the ESA and will provide at least some certainty to millions of Americans who are impacted by at risk species,\u201d said Rep. Bentz.\n\nThe CRA is supported by the American Farm Bureau, the National Cattleman\u2019s Beef Association, the Public Lands Council, the National Mining Association, the Western Energy Alliance, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Property and Environmental Policy Research Center (PERC) and the Dallas Safari Club.\n\n\u201cWestern Energy Alliance urges Congress to pass the CRA resolution to overturn the Biden Administration\u2019s Critical Habitat Rule. The Supreme Court very clearly ruled that in order to be designated as critical habitat, lands must be just that, habitat. The Trump rule defined critical habitat accordingly. Now the Biden Administration would have us go back to a time before that unanimous Supreme Court decision and designate lands as critical habitat where not only is the species not even present, but doesn\u2019t even contain the conditions for the species to survive. Such a policy is about controlling land and stopping useful human activities, not about protecting species,\u201d said Kathleen Sgamma, President of the Western Energy Alliance.\n\n\u201cEach time an area is designated as critical habitat, ranchers and landowners bear the brunt of the regulatory burden. These decisions have real impacts on rural communities and landscape management \u2013 it is imperative that they be rooted in scientific reality, not hypotheticals. Restoring the 2020 definition of habitat is a commonsense step to reduce the delays and drawn-out, speculative analyses that are so often standing in the way of important wildlife conservation work on the ground,\u201d said Public Lands Council Director Sigrid Johannes.\n\n\"Conserving and restoring habitat is essential to recovering species. Yet the Biden administration has opted to have no definition of habitat to guide its decisions. It would be appropriate to have a definition that reflects current science and the need for better incentives for private landowners to conserve and restore habitat,\" said Jonathan Wood, PERC Vice President of Law and Policy.\n\nA critical habitat designation has major impacts on landowners, as it reduces the value of any private property within a designation because prospective landowners recognize the burdens that accompany a designation. It also greatly impacts any land with a federal nexus through permits or funding, as a critical habitat triggers significant scrutiny, resulting in burdensome limitations on land use and costly mitigation requirements.\n\nIn December 2020, citing Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. FWS, the Trump administration finalized a rule that defined the term \u201chabitat\u201d as \u201cthe abiotic and biotic setting that currently or periodically contains the resources and conditions necessary to support one or more life processes of a species.\u201d\n\nOn June 24, 2022, the Biden administration finalized a rule that rescinded the 2020 rule, eliminating the habitat distinction, leaving regulated parties in the dark and undermining the ESA\u2019s purpose of protecting endangered or threatened species.\n\nThe Endangered Species Act directs the Secretary of Interior through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the Secretary of Commerce through the National Marine Fisheries Services to designate critical habitat for listed species.\n\nThe following species found in Wyoming are currently listed as endangered: the grizzly bear, whooping crane, black-footed ferret, gray wolf, yellow-billed cuckoo, Wyoming toad, northern long-eared bat, Kendall warm springs dace, Preble\u2019s meadow jumping mouse, Canada lynx, blowout penstemon, Colorado butterfly plant, desert yellowhead and Ute ladies\u2019-tresses.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T23:30:02Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://bentz.house.gov/media/press-releases/lummis-bentz-lead-colleagues-introducing-congressional-review-act-overturn"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5393600333482027, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}