[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 14037]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    H.R. 4315, THE 21ST CENTURY ENDANGERED SPECIES TRANSPARENCY ACT

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                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 31, 2014

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I voted against H.R. 4315, a package of 
bills that would weaken the process by which the Administration makes 
Endangered Species Act (ESA) determinations.
  While H.R. 4315 is nothing more than a partisan talking point, it 
does raise an important debate about the need to reform our regulations 
to make them more performance-based. Instead of establishing specific 
rules that tell stakeholders how to achieve specific outcomes, our 
regulations should instead identify exactly what we want and allow for 
multiple paths and discretion for achieving set outcomes. By holding 
local governments, states, and the private sector accountable, while 
allowing for flexibility, we can reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and 
make our regulations more efficient and effective without undercutting 
public and environmental protections.
  The ESA has a clear intention of protecting threatened wildlife 
species and from 1973 to 2013, it has prevented extinction for 99% of 
species under its protection. H.R. 4315 does not improve the process, 
and only moves us away from achieving further wildlife protection and 
recovery goals.
  While framed as a way to roll back red tape, this bill instead 
creates additional layers of bureaucracy through burdensome and 
unnecessary reporting requirements on the details of all ESA lawsuit 
expenditures made by the Department of Interior, the Forest Service, 
the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Bonneville, Western 
Area, Southwestern and Southeastern Power Administrations. Given that 
our federal agencies are already resource-constrained, these 
requirements will only distract from the charge to protect threatened 
and endangered species.
  The bill also downgrades the quality of science used in the ESA 
determination process, by defining all data provided by a State, Tribal 
or county government as the ``best available'' data without any review 
of whether or not it actually is the best data.
  This legislation does not further the important goals of species 
recovery efforts. Congress should work to reform regulation in a way 
that helps agencies, Tribes, local government and private industry 
increase performance measures, not create additional bureaucracies and 
waste limited public resources. I oppose this legislation, yet another 
in a long series of bills passed by this Congress to undermine 
important environmental protections. I was disappointed to see it pass.

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