Enviro groups urge Senate to abandon delisting rider

A dozen environmental groups today sent a letter to the Senate urging lawmakers to abandon plans to remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves, arguing that such a move would undermine the law and threaten biodiversity.

The letter comes as a federal district judge in Missoula, Mont., considers a more limited delisting proposal included in a settlement filed last month by environmental groups and the Interior Department (E&ENews PM, March 18).

"Current legislative proposals to attach a 'rider' to a long-term continuing resolution delisting gray wolves would scuttle this fragile agreement, and attack the very foundations of the Endangered Species Act," wrote groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity, each of which is party to the proposed settlement.

Four of the 14 original plaintiffs that sued to return ESA protections for wolves -- including Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Western Watersheds Project -- did not agree to the settlement and are thus not subject to its terms limiting legal challenges.

House and Senate lawmakers last week said they intend to continue pushing language in an upcoming funding bill that would delist the wolf in Montana and Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah, and bar legal challenges (E&E Daily, April 1).

The proposals by Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson (R) and Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) would subvert the scientific underpinnings of ESA and threaten biodiversity critical to sustaining ecosystem services such as food, medicine and clean water, groups wrote.

The proposed settlement before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy would maintain protections for wolves in Washington, Oregon and Utah, where populations are relatively low, as well as in Wyoming until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approves a state management plan there. The settlement also requires independent scientific review of wolf management progress to ensure the species remains genetically viable.

Tester this weekend told hunters and anglers in his state that he still plans to push the delisting legislation.

"Last month's court settlement is a good start. But with this issue, we need predictability," he said in prepared remarks Saturday to the Hellgate Hunters and Anglers group in Missoula.

"We need a smart law that gets wolves delisted, and recognizes that wolves are biologically recovered," he said, "a law that will actually pass Congress."