[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13381]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             HOUSE PASSAGE OF ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT BILLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, this week, the House will 
be advancing solutions to some significant issues that are facing this 
Nation.
  Among those, I rise today to discuss one of those, a piece of 
legislation set for consideration by the House later this week, H.R. 
4315, the Endangered Species Transparency and Reasonableness Act. It is 
a package of reform bills that will modernize and improve the 
Endangered Species Act.
  In 1973, the Endangered Species Act was first enacted to protect and 
recover key domestic species that are under threat of extinction. 
Although the ESA was written with the best of intentions, areas of the 
law hinder, rather than enhance, our ability to effectively manage 
ecosystems and conserve species as initially intended. Today, the law 
is failing, failing to achieve its primary purpose of species recovery 
and has only a 2 percent recovery rate.
  In April, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced this package 
of bills through committee with support from both sides of the aisle.
  As a member of the House Endangered Species Act Working Group, which 
developed the findings and recommendations for these proposals, I 
encourage my colleagues to support these reforms that promote greater 
transparency and accountability under the Endangered Species Act, while 
ensuring the ecological and economic needs of our local communities are 
being met.

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