[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 88 (Wednesday, May 24, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H2557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                   REFORM THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Endangered Species Act was put into law 
over 50 years ago. Of course, its purpose was to protect and recover 
vulnerable species to save them from population decline and extinction. 
That act has, to date, only recovered a couple dozen species, as there 
are over 1,300 listed species in the United States. The ratio of 
recovery indeed is a failure.
  The ESA must be reformed to refocus the efforts of the Federal 
Government to recover animal species in a timely manner without also 
making it difficult for people to coexist in their habitat, as well.
  We have the law now that is more likely to be used as a back door to 
regulate economic activity than a pro-conservation piece of 
legislation.
  There are numerous examples of activist groups weaponizing the ESA to 
use it as a business model. Indeed, they make money from the lawsuits.
  For example, in my part of the State in the Central Valley, the 
valley elderberry longhorn beetle has had a very negative effect on the 
ability of Central Valley residents to maintain flood controls in the 
form of levees.
  The residents cannot upgrade and improve the levees in this area 
because the ESA prevents them from doing so without very costly long-
held permits. This is despite the fact that it has been recommended by 
Fish and Wildlife that the longhorn beetle be delisted for many years 
now. However, the environmental groups keep litigating on that and the 
Fish and Wildlife organization has pulled back from delisting the 
beetle.
  So why do they do this? It is obvious.
  If the beetle is delisted, it loses the ESA protections that make 
levee upgrades so difficult, expensive, and time-consuming in order to 
obtain the permits. The beetle has been delisted in some areas of 
California, such as the southern parts, but in my district, it is still 
listed as endangered, making it difficult to do needed flood-control 
projects.
  Another example that has devastated the forest industry, in the West 
especially, is the spotted owl. It was listed many years ago. We find 
that the ESA has made that a weapon against forest management, and we 
have seen the results of that with million-acre fires. Year after year, 
hundreds of thousands of acres of fire have been wreaking havoc on so 
much of the West because we can't manage the lands because they believe 
there might be a spotted owl nearby, even though it isn't really the 
management of forests that is the problem. It is another larger owl 
nearby that actually devastates the spotted owl, known as the barred 
owl.

  Also the spotted owl seems to like foresting a little closer to human 
activity because it is seen as a protection from the barred owl, which 
devastates their population.
  What is the end result?
  Over 100 sawmills in California have shut down due to these 
protections that indeed make timber supply unavailable to the sawmills, 
so they go away, and instead, we have to import timber.
  Now the activists themselves that sue over this, they don't live in 
these conditions. They live in cities far away. They don't have to live 
with the conditions of their economy being devastated in a small town 
in northern California or Oregon or other western States. So it is 
really easy to regulate other people somewhere else and say they have 
an idea about what a forest should look like when their own homes 
aren't subject to the threat of fire; indeed, places like Greenville, 
California, Canyondam, California, and a few years ago, a lot of us 
around the country heard about Paradise, California, as well. If they 
don't have to experience it, it is really easy for urban legislators to 
make regulations that continue to devastate these areas.
  It is actually the local people that know best how to fight fires, 
how to manage the lands, and how to generate an economy that helps 
those communities take care of themselves and keep the people supplied 
with paper products and wood products that the country still wants.
  So why in the world are we the number two importer of wood in the 
United States? We have so much that we could be utilizing. We could 
have managed forests that have the right ratio of trees per acre that 
is actually sustainable, instead of this horrific overpopulation of 
trees that really creates its own drought and creates a situation where 
they become tinderboxes, million-acre fires, ruining the habitat and 
killing the wildlife. Indeed, the opposite of what the Endangered 
Species Act is trying to do.
  Also, why do we have such high food prices in this country?
  Why do we even encounter food shortages in the United States of 
America?
  Because it is hard to have a water supply in California that is a 
steady, stable supply.
  They take away the ability to build dams and enhance our water 
storage, and all the water flows down the river and out to the sea. The 
Endangered Species Act needs to be restored to put things back on track 
for human needs.

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