Letter to Dan Ashe, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Concerns Over New Talks to Re-List Lesser Prairie Chicken as Threatened

Letter

Director Ashe,

We write to express our concerns over recent statements you have made regarding the status of the listing of the lesser prairie-chicken (LPC) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Following the bird's removal from the list of threatened and endangered species, in accordance with the court order issued by the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, your agency issued a press release stating that U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) is "undertaking a new status review to determine whether listing is again warranted."

This assurance is extremely troubling to many of our constituents and we would like clarification on what this "new status review" looks like and how your agency intends to pay for it, as this would be in direct violation of language included in the House Passed version of the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill. To be clear, we would like to reiterate the intent of the language below.

"None of the funds made available by this Act shall be used to treat the lesser prairie chicken as an endangered species or threatened species, or a candidate for listing as such a species, under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.)."

This bill language is intended to prevent USFWS from attempting to re-list the lesser prairie-chicken, under any ESA designation, from now until the end of Fiscal Year 2017. At which time Congress will have the opportunity to re-evaluate the legislation. However, we are confident that efforts being taken at the state and local level will be more than enough to see that the bird's population continues to rebound.

We thank you for your attention to this letter and look forward to your response. If you have any questions about this request, please contact Michael Brooks with Rep. Kevin Yoder at (202) 225-2865.

Sincerely,