Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that would prohibit the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from using any funds to continue treating the gray wolf under ESA after June 13, 2017--providing these agencies with funding to continue managing the gray wolf for nearly a year--more than half enough time to work with States to develop and implement individual State management plans that would go into effect when Federal management ends. Mr. Chairman, this is an issue of extreme importance to my home State of Washington where the gray wolf is listed in the western two-thirds of the State but is delisted in the eastern third. This fragmented listing means there are no geographic barriers to prevent wolves from traveling between listed and delisted areas, posing a risk to people's lives, farming, and ranching in the region. Unfortunately, this issue should already be settled. On June 13, 2013, the Service published a proposed rule to remove the gray wolf from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. It made this determination after evaluating ``the classification status of gray wolves currently listed in the contiguous U.S.'' and found the ``best available scientific and commercial information indicates that the currently listed entity is not a valid species under the Act.'' The statutory purpose of ESA is to recover a species to the point where it no longer is considered endangered or threatened.…”