00:00I wish to be recognized. Mr. Huffman, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I am
00:05glad that the gentlelady from Wyoming and I both want the Grizzly Bear Recovery to be a success
00:11story, but this is not the way to get there. To legislatively delist the population located around
00:19Yellowstone in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho from the ESA, and then block judicial review, that is
00:26not going to lead us down the path of success. That's going to lead us to some really unfortunate
00:30consequences, maybe relearning some lessons of history that we ought to know better at this point.
00:36The bill clearly places partisan politics over science-based management decisions,
00:42ignoring tribal consultation on culturally significant species, silencing public input,
00:48and jeopardizing the recovery process for the Grizzly Bear population. A lot has happened since
00:54the Fish and Wildlife Service published that faulty 2017 delisting rule that the courts threw out.
01:01And by the way, just because a court rules against the Trump administration, you don't have to add the
01:06word activist before the word judge. Sometimes they're just applying the law. But over the past few
01:13years, the service updated the species status assessment for the Grizzly Bear, including greater
01:19Yellowstone Ecosystem Grizzlies, and rejected two petitions to delist the Grizzly. Now we haven't
01:25had a hearing on this bill in this Congress, and so we haven't recently heard from the Fish and Wildlife
01:31Service about this legislation, including everything that has happened since the last Congress. But last
01:38Congress, we heard from Fish and Wildlife Service. We heard from a leading Grizzly Bear biologist. We received
01:44letters from numerous stakeholders and tribal nations. All of them opposed this legislation.
01:50And one major reason for the widespread concern about the bill is that some states have not
01:55demonstrated a credible commitment to continuing the conservation of the species. That's why
02:00the former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter to Montana legislators
02:06warning that state laws and regulations threaten both Grizzly Bear recovery and public safety.
02:12With these anti-predator laws in place, the Grizzly could once again vanish from the greater
02:17Yellowstone ecosystem. So reinstating the outdated 2017 delisting rule could actually put the Grizzly Bear
02:26back on the road toward extinction, which none of us should want to see. I oppose this bill
02:30and urge my colleagues to vote no. Yield back.
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