Doug LaMalfa Ask Fish And Wildlife Service Official About 'Frivolous ESA Lawsuits'

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During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) questioned Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Justin Shirley about ESA lawsuits.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, sir.

00:04Ms. Shirley, welcome.

00:05Thanks for being with us today, and appreciate your work.

00:09Under current ESA framework, many of us have a lot of frustration with the frivolous ESA

00:17lawsuits that are brought to block pretty much any project from happening.

00:22I base a lot of that on forestry and how many millions of acres have to go up and smoke

00:27every year and the impairment of getting onto the lands to do things, you know, so-called

00:33roadless areas or even existing roads that have to go through a whole bunch of NEPA process

00:39in order to have them repaired and upgraded, et cetera.

00:43So when we're talking about, you know, in your scope of work, how much of these frivolous

00:52lawsuits that have been just a deterrent to doing it for the service's ability to, in

01:01this case, delist species that we would see as probably recovered.

01:07Thank you, Representative, for that question.

01:10As mentioned, I agree with you that we do have the citizen suit provision in ESA that does

01:20lead to a lot of litigation work, and yes, there, there has definitely been circumstances

01:26and continues to be that the, that litigation work can stymie the efforts of us trying to

01:32develop plans and, and work on recovery efforts, and so we would welcome any feedback that the

01:38committee would have for us there.

01:42All right, we, we need some, we need some help with some of the things that are going on,

01:47like in my own district and other parts of Western states, the litigation that is surrounding

01:53the gray wolf population right now, they're, they've been ongoing introducing more gray wolves

01:59into Northern California and some of our surrounding areas, and it really needs to be delisted.

02:05There's tens of thousands of these wolves in North America, and for some reason, they seem

02:10to believe it has to be in every county in North America, otherwise it's going to be seen as

02:15endangered in that part of the area.

02:17Can, can you make any logic out of that with, how can something be plentiful in one part of

02:24the country, and indeed have the population to carry on into perpetuity, but seen as endangered

02:30just because of the geography, and they also have plans of introducing about a thousand

02:34grizzly, grizzly bears into California, if they can get that past muster.

02:39What, what do you think of that?

02:42Wow, those are questions that I'm, I'm somewhat familiar with coming from a state agency in

02:48the West, from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and having gray wolf always be something

02:54that we've been dealing with, and the, what you bring up there with the, the concerns of

03:02how ESA is being used, we need to, you know, the service wants to see gray wolves delisted, and we're

03:09still appealing that 2022 decision, and are, are working in that direction. We want the science to govern

03:17that delisting, and have been working towards that, and all the, you know, the, the work that goes behind the

03:24scenes in, in both grizzly bears and wolves is extensive, and state management of those species

03:30really needs to occur at a level for the species protection moving forward. That's the goals of ESA,

03:37is to protect those species and be able to turn over management to, to states to be able to run with

03:42recovery plans. Certainly, certainly, then it's weaponized into something to stop a lot of other

03:46things. Do you see, do you see the service planning to re actually recommend delisting?

03:53On wolves, we're going to follow the science there, and yes, we're, we're recommending delisting,

03:58and currently supporting the appeal process from the courts. Is there a solid recovery number,

04:06you know, some sort of benchmark for the population, and does it have to be applied towards every

04:12county in the U.S., or can it be seen cumulatively in North America?

04:16Yeah, there, as far as the recovery goals of the plan, there's always a population number

04:23attributed to that. What those are, I'm not, I'm, would need to get back to you on, but we, you know,

04:29again, with wolves in particular, it's one of the, one of the ones that the service has identified,

04:35should be delisted, and we're working towards that. Okay, so,

04:38just pulling a number out of there, if you reach a particular number, a target, say,

04:4320,000 wolves in North America, then maybe we would be there.

04:47Yeah, the one, the additional information I would provide there is, under ESA,

04:53besides just population goal, you're always looking at critical habitat trends, all the other factors

05:00that would go into making sure that that species is fully recovered, and we're following the science.

05:04Well, it's certainly recovering and devouring just about everything, and

05:08the northeast part of my district, as far as wildlife, as well as the cattle population. So,

05:14much needs to be done on rectifying this, and identifying that it is, indeed, needs to be

05:19delisted, and will be just fine in North America. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:23Time's expired, Mr. Hoffman.

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