Endangered species in the United States are facing a newly powerful enemy: a Republican Congressional majority backed by a Trump administration and a likely right-leaning Supreme Court.
The Endangered Species Act (ESA)—dubbed “America’s foremost tool for protecting biodiversity” by the Center for Biological Diversity—has for decades been the target of right-wing Republicans. In 2015 alone, the Republican-dominated Congress launched an unprecedented 130 legislative assaults (pdf) on the law, including bills intended to undermine the ESA and legislative amendments that would greatly weaken the law’s protections.
One Republican congressman, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, has now set his sights on completely dismantling the pivotal 1973 law. Josh Zaffos reports for High Country News that after backing bills to weaken the ESA for years, earlier this month Bishop “went even further and told E&E News the ESA is so dysfunctional that lawmakers may ‘simply have to start over again,’ and ‘repeal it and replace it.'”