21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee for working with us on this working draft.

I also support the Endangered Species Act, and I rise in enthusiastic support of the Endangered Species Act and enthusiastic support of this bill because this bill embodies much of the ethos that the American people have embodied during the years the Endangered Species Act has been in effect.

This act was passed in 1974 with goals that were admirable and goals that the people of this country have embedded in their DNA to achieve. To conserve species, to have habitat for species so we can have rich, diverse populations of flora and fauna.

This bill will help those goals because we will know what science is being used to base these decisions upon. Right now, science that is undisclosed is being used. Right now, we have tribal governments, county governments, and State governments, through these incredibly impressive wildlife agencies, who have had this ethos embedded in them since they were little kids, trying to administer these laws, trying to save these species.

We want their knowledge shared with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We want to know what science is being used to make these decisions so it can be vetted by third parties, so people who have specialized scientific knowledge about a habitat area or a subspecies can share that knowledge with agencies so that we are not making decisions with litigants behind closed doors with no public input by the people whose dream is to have an Endangered Species Act that works, that works for the people on the land, the people who love these species, who love the habitat, who care for it every day, the people who want the Endangered Species Act administered in a way that is transparent and fair and will recover species.

I am of the opinion that an act that has less than a 2 percent recovery rate or a delisting rate is not a success. I think we can have better models to succeed to delist species or, better yet, not list species in the first place.

These small steps that are embedded in this bill--transparency of science, involving tribal, State, and local governments and their base of knowledge about what they see on the ground, is critical to having an Endangered Species Act that works, that takes advantage of the American people who care about conserving habitat and saving species.

Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense, rational approach to recovery that has the kind of transparency that we were promised by this administration. Let's help them achieve it.

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