Letter to the Hon. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, and the Hon. Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce - Buchanan Slams Plan to Weaken Endangered Species Act

Letter

Dear Secretaries Zinke and Ross,

I am writing today to urge you to withdraw immediately a dangerous and ill-advised proposal to gut key protections in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The 45-year-old law is the gold standard for conservation and the protection of wildlife.

This landmark law has been essential to protecting our most vulnerable wildlife including the American bald eagle, the California condor and the Florida manatee. Since its enactment, the ESA has been so successful that 99 percent of the species placed under its protection have been saved from extinction.

If implemented, however, these new regulations will not only make it easier to remove an endangered species from key protections, but make it more difficult to protect the critical habitats where these vulnerable animals live. It would be unconscionable to weaken the very safeguards that have kept these animals alive for the past four decades.

Brett Hartl, the director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity warned that "these proposals would slam a wrecking ball into the most crucial protections for our most endangered wildlife."

Also alarming is the provision that will no longer afford threatened species the same protections as endangered species, and instead determine their protections on a "case-by-case basis." But, as New York law professor Richard Steward points out, the logic behind current law was that "if you wait until the species' numbers are actually small enough that it's going to become extinct, it may be difficult or too late" to save it. Instead, the threatened list is intended to anticipate the species' decline in advance and act to save it. This is just common sense.

The iconic Florida Panther, one of world's rarest cats is currently undergoing a mandatory five-year review. If the Fish and Wildlife Service chooses to downgrade the panther from endangered to threatened, despite my strong opposition, it could be subject to this new rule and lose many of the vital protections it needs to survive.

I am also extremely concerned about a provision that would no longer require federal agencies to consult with scientists and wildlife agencies before approving permits for activities such as oil and gas drilling. According to a former director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, "these regulations are at the very heart of how the Endangered Species Act is implemented" and "would undercut the effectiveness of the ESA and out species at risk of extinction."

Once a species becomes extinct, it is lost forever. As caretakers of this country's diverse natural resources, we should do everything in our power to protect these magnificent creatures.

I look forward to your prompt response on this critically important matter.

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