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Congress is considering a series of bills that, if passed into law, would institute changes to the Endangered Species Act that could shift control of conservation measures to state and local governments, accelerate decisions about whether species need protecting, and limit courts’ power to overturn decisions to lift or loosen species protections, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Many Democrats and wildlife advocates argue that the proposed changes will put the world’s biodiversity at risk. “The wildlife extinction package is an extreme and all-encompassing assault on the Endangered Species Act,” Bob Dreher, senior vice president of conservation programs at the nonprofit conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife, says in a statement posted by YubaNet.com. “These bills discard science, increasing the likelihood of harm to species and habitat, create hurdles to protecting species, and undermine citizen’s ability to enforce the law in court, while delegating authority for species management to ...
