On the recordFebruary 25, 2016
I would like respond just briefly to the gentleman's remarks concerning ivory. If you look at the current state of regulatory efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for those nations that have sustainable elephant populations, it would actually make it much, much more difficult to manage them and it would actually encourage more poaching. We want to make sure that we allow the legal trade of legally harvested elephants. In doing that, that makes sure that African nations can put in place sustainable programs for the harvesting of elephants, where there are overpopulations, to make sure that they have the wherewithal to put people on the ground to stop poaching. This is a sustainable effort, I believe, that is critical, and these regulations will actually stop that. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Benishek).
