Political Quotes

“First of all I want to thank you personally, as well as your colleague from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) and also Mrs. McMorris Rodgers of Washington, for your work on this amendment. The continuing resolution as written would reinstate a 2009 Fish and Wildlife determination that the gray wolf in Montana and Idaho should be removed from the endangered species list. This amendment would replace that 2009 determination with an earlier-approved Fish and Wildlife determination, the one made in 2008, and that expands the scope of delisting of the gray wolf to include the full range of the Northern Rockies wolf. Mr. Chairman, after gray wolves were introduced in 1995 into Yellowstone National Park in my home State and placed on the endangered species list under section 10(j), which is the nonessential experimental population section of the Endangered Species Act, a list was determined about what it would take to recover the species, when would we consider it recovered, and it was determined by experts at the time that the recovery would be complete if the population of wolves grew to 300 wolves with at least 30 breeding pairs. That was the target, that was the goal, 300 wolves, 30 breeding pairs. So how many wolves are there today, Mr. Chairman? Here we are, 16 years later. There are more than 1,600 wolves and 113 breeding pairs. By every reasonable definition, the wolf has recovered, and yet these wolves remain on the endangered species list.”