News from the Republican’s Continuing War On Nature
Republicans begin effort to gut the Endangered Species Act
On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held hearings on legislation to “modernize” the Endangered Species Act, part of a push by Republicans to roll back environmental regulations and protections.
The Republicans on the committee, led by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and three of the five witnesses at the hearing argued that the 1973 law to keep animal species from extinction impedes oil drilling, mining, and farming, and infringes on the rights of states and private landowners.
The proposed legislation would make it harder to list animals on the endangered species list and limit legal action under the 1973 law, among other changes…
Read more: http://theweek.com/speedreads/680557/republicans-begin-effort-gut-endangered-species-act
Scott Pruitt, longtime adversary of EPA, confirmed to lead the agency
Pruitt begins what is likely to be a controversial tenure with a clear set of goals. He has been outspoken in his view, widely shared by Republicans, that the EPA zealously overstepped its legal authority under President Barack Obama, saddling the fossil-fuel industry with unnecessary and onerous regulations. ..
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/17/scott-pruitt-long-time-adversary-of-epa-confirmed-to-lead-the-agency
Scott Pruitt is just as bad as Betsy Devos
Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, has spent his career waging legal battles against clean air, climate, and water regulations.
He has sued the EPA more than a dozen times, participating in what The New York Times described as “an unprecedented, secretive alliance” with fossil fuel companies to fight Obama-era environmental regulations.
He has helped collect millions in political donations from the very industries he will be tasked with regulating. He’s called climate science a “religious belief,” and his official biography even boasts that he’s “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda…”
Read more: http://grist.org/article/scott-pruitt-is-just-as-bad-as-betsy-devos/
The NRA just persuaded Congress to legalize the killing of bear cubs in wildlife refuges
The House voted to overturn the Obama administration’s ‘Fair Chase’ rule.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to legalize the killing of black bear cubs and their mothers at their dens in Alaska’s national wildlife refuges.
The controversial measure, backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), overturns a ‘Fair Chase’ rule, promulgated by the Obama administration, that also limited baiting, trapping, and the use of airplanes to track and shoot bears and wolves on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands in Alaska…
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/congress-legalized-killing-bear-cubs-in-refuges-9ca5d3ae3929#.2rb12likw
