Announcement By the Acting Chair

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, this is an extreme solution in search of a problem that does not exist. The Department of Defense is not asking for this huge loophole from the Endangered Species Act. They have never asked for this, and they don't need it.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act. Since its enactment, the ESA has provided that all agencies of the Federal Government, including the Department of Defense, should conserve threatened and endangered species.

This amendment undermines that commitment, essentially writing the Department of Defense out of the ESA. It broadly excludes all DOD activities, including activities of defense contractors, from ESA requirements.

It also constrains other Federal agencies from designating critical habitat, one of the most essential tools under the Endangered Species Act. This is habitat that is necessary for the recovery of an endangered or threatened species.

There is zero evidence that the ESA is negatively impacting military activities. In fact, in many cases, setting aside areas around military bases for conservation actually helps the military by limiting other types of development and uses around essential military areas.

Further, the Department of Defense already has a lot of flexibility on how they can comply with the ESA.

We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, and the Endangered Species Act continues to be an essential, visionary, and critical tool for keeping species from going extinct. It is a sad testimony to the extremism of the House Republican majority that they are turning this historically bipartisan NDAA into a bonfire of hate, bigotry, and ignorance, and this amendment throws another log on that fire by trying to use NDAA to gut one of our most vital and essential environmental laws.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this terrible amendment.

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