On the recordJuly 7, 2015
I just wanted to explain the situation that we find ourselves in. I am sympathetic with what the gentleman is doing, and when we actually passed language 4 years ago on the wolves in Idaho and Montana, we thought about what happened to the wolves that go into Washington and Oregon and Nevada and Utah and so forth; and we thought about including those in the general delisting. Well, we didn't delist them; the Fish and Wildlife Service did. We found it created several problems. One, those States didn't have State management plans, which is the case today with most of them because we discussed this, or I discussed this issue earlier with the Fish and Wildlife Service. What their plan is and what they would like to do is, currently, they support the language that is in the bill that reinstates their delisting in Wyoming and the Great Lakes. Those States have State management plans that have been approved by Fish and Wildlife Service. If you include the other States that are included in this that don't have the State management plans, then Fish and Wildlife has to oppose what we are doing. I believe that what their goal is, is to get this language passed dealing with Wyoming, the Great Lakes, and then do a wider, rangewide delisting once those States have State management plans that have been adopted by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and this amendment may undermine that. This is something that we need to discuss, I think.…
