August, 14 2023, 11:14am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org
Tara Thornton, tthornton@endangered.org
Dave Willett, dwillett@lcv.org
Hawk Hammer, hhammer@defenders.org
Two Dozen Riders Attacking Wildlife, Endangered Species, and At-Risk Habitats in House Spending Bills Must Be Removed
House Appropriations Republicans have loaded up their draft annual spending bills with at least two dozen poison pill policy riders that attack wildlife, endangered species, and at-risk habitats. The Clean Budget Coalition, which is tracking the poison pills added to federal spending bills, has repeatedly called on Congress to remove all of these harmful measures.
“The American people expect that wildlife conservation will be based on science, not politics,” said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. “Decisions on how wildlife are protected should be made by biologists rather than politicians in Congress.”
“MAGA Republican leadership in the House has reached a new low in their Interior appropriations bill, which slashes protections for our clean air, water, and critically endangered species,” said Kaila Hood, government affairs advocate for the League of Conservation Voters. “The House Interior spending bill contains dozens of provisions that attack at-risk wildlife and habitats, including iconic species like bison, grizzly bears, and gray wolves. These harmful provisions are part of a larger wish-list from extractive industries and developers, which come at the expense of wildlife, our environment, and our collective health. We must ensure that these poison pill riders are not included in any final spending bills— now or in the future.”
“We need policies that meaningfully address the joint biodiversity and climate crises and the grave threats they present to wildlife and people,” said Mary Beth Beetham, legislative director for Defenders of Wildlife. “Politicians who attack the Endangered Species Act and override science-based conservation policies are ignoring catastrophes that grow worse by the day and will be poorly remembered by future generations paying for these harmful riders.”
The riders attacking wildlife include:
Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
- The Climate Fisheries Rider would block funds for climate change fisheries research, which would harm fisheries management, ecosystems, and fishermen.
- The Vessel Strike Reduction Rule Rider would prevent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from finalizing its proposed North Atlantic right whale vessel strike reduction rule until a "near real-time monitoring and mitigation program" to track threatened or endangered whales has been deployed. This would slow down an urgently needed rule to protect the survival of this species.
- The Forest Protection Rider would block funds for implementation of Executive Order 14072, which protects forests in federal regulatory decision making.
Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies
- The Waters of the U.S. Rider would block the January 2023 revised definition of “Waters of the United States.”
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
- The Waters of the U.S. Rider would prevent the Waters of the United States rule from taking effect.
- The Boundary Waters Mining Rider would overturn the Biden administration's recently finalized withdrawal of around 225,000 acres of National Forest System lands in northeastern Minnesota, opening the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to toxic mine pollution.
- The Boundary Waters Hardrock Lease Rider would require the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate two canceled hardrock mineral leases in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
- The Ancillary Use Mining Rider would give mining claimants the right to permanently occupy federal public lands, construct massive toxic waste dumps, and build roads and pipelines across those lands – an unprecedented giveaway of America’s cherished public lands to mining corporations, reversing over one hundred years of legal precedent.
- The Caldwell Canyon Mining Rider would require the Secretary of the Interior to issue a new Record of Decision for Caldwell Canyon Mine project, imposing arbitrary timelines to shortcut compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations. The Caldwell Canyon phosphorus-phosphate mine would be built on irreplaceable habitat, leading to decades of additional water pollution.
- The Expanded Sage Grouse Rider would expand the ban on protecting the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act – a legacy rider – to include the separate population of bi-state sage grouse.
- The Bison Rider would prohibit funds to allow the introduction of bison into the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana.
- The Endangered Species Consultation Rider would codify climate denialism into law by exempting the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management from updating their land management plans when new information – often new knowledge about the increasingly severe impacts of climate change – shows that endangered species are being harmed or killed on public lands.
- The Lesser Prairie Chicken Rider would prohibit the Interior Department from implementing or enforcing a rule that protects the Lesser Prairie Chicken under the Endangered Species Act.
- The Grizzly Bear Habitat Rider would block funds for the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Ecosystem Restoration Plan.
- The Northern Long-Eared Bat Rider would prohibit the Interior Department from implementing or enforcing a final rule that protects the northern long-eared bat under the Endangered Species Act.
- The Gray Wolf Rider would direct the Secretary of the Interior to reissue a rule prematurely removing endangered species protections for the Gray Wolf.
- The Grand Staircase-Escalante Rider would prohibit funds for management of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah except in compliance with the Record of Decision and the February 2020 Resource Management Plan.
- The Glacier National Park Reservation Rider would prohibit the park from implementing a reservation system to address overcrowding.
- The Bison Rider would prohibit the U.S. Department of the Interior from establishing a working group to help restore bison populations.
- The Lead Ammunition and Tackle Rider would prevent agencies charged with wildlife protection from banning toxic lead in ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands unless an impossible set of criteria are met.
- The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard Rider would prohibit listing the animal under the Endangered Species Act.
- The Rat Poison Rider would block the EPA from restricting rodenticides that pose health risks to humans and other mammals and birds.
- The Conservation Land Use Rider would prohibit the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from implementing the Conservation and Landscape Health rule, which allows the agency to better prioritize conservation of public lands.
- The Grizzly Bear Rider would delist the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of Grizzly Bears under the Endangered Species Act.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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57 House Dems Call On Biden to Prevent Israeli Assault on Rafah
"An offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable."
May 01, 2024
Dozens of U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday joined Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal and Madeleine Dean in pressuring President Joe Biden to prevent a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that's now full of over a million displaced Palestinians.
"We write with urgency to say: an offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable," states the letter from Jayapal (D-Wash.), Dean (D-Pa.), and 55 other members of Congress. "We welcome your administration's efforts to dissuade the Israeli government from this military operation, which would deepen both the humanitarian catastrophe for people in Gaza and the strategic challenges that regional and global stakeholders face in this conflict."
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The Democrats highlighted how Israel's retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack has impacted the city:
Rafah has become one of the most overcrowded places in the world. With shelters too full and insufficient, many families now live on the streets. The collapsed health infrastructure, in addition to sewage overflow and the scarcity of food, water, and medicine, has accelerated the onset of severe malnutrition and the spread of communicable diseases. Acute food insecurity is endemic in Rafah, even as the international community circulates credible reports that famine is setting in elsewhere in Gaza—all as a result of six months of military operations that you have described as "indiscriminate." In addition, we know in fact that Israeli strikes on Rafah have already occurred, including one on April 20th that killed 18 people, including 14 children.
Across the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have killed 34,568 people and wounded another 77,765—mostly women and children—while leaving thousands more missing in the rubble of bombed buildings, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Biden has resisted mounting global pressure to limit or fully cut off military aid to Israel, which the International Court of Justice in January concluded is "plausibly" committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. That case is ongoing.
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"An Israeli offensive in Rafah risks the start of yet another escalatory spiral, immediately putting the region back on the brink of a broader war that neither Israel nor the United States can afford," they warned. Along with calling on the president to withhold aid to Israel to protect civilians in Rafah, the lawmakers urged Biden to keep working "toward achieving a lasting cease-fire that will bring hostages home and build a path toward safety and security for all."
They also said that "it is of the utmost importance that both Hamas and Israel immediately come to the table with the international community for a mutually agreed ceasefire deal that can secure the safe return of hostages, full resumption of humanitarian aid, and the space for a negotiated, long-term peace in the region."
The letter comes a week after Biden signed a foreign aid package that included $26 billion for Israel and passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. Jayapal and three dozen other Democrats opposed the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which ultimately passed.
In a joint statement last month, the Washington Democrat and 18 of her colleagues said that "our votes against H.R. 8034 are votes against supplying more offensive weapons that could result in more killings of civilians in Rafah and elsewhere."
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In sharp contrast with Columbia University in New York City, Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday announced the imminent suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel over that country's assault on Gaza.
"The government of change informs that as of tomorrow diplomatic relations with Israel will be broken... for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal," Petro told a crowd in the capital Bogotá during an International Workers' Day event, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The world could be summed up in a single word that vindicates the necessity of life, rebellion, the raised flag, and resistance," the leftist leader added. "That word is called Gaza. It is called Palestine. It is called the children and babies who have died dismembered by the bombs."
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Colombia joins at least nine other nations—including Bahrain, Belize, Bolivia, Chad, Chile, Honduras, Jordan, South Africa, and Turkey—that have either recalled their ambassadors from Israel or broken off relations in response to Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced around 90% of the besieged strip's 2.3 million people.
In late October, Colombia became one of the first countries to recall its ambassador from Israel, a move that came amid a diplomatic fracas between Bogotá and Tel Aviv sparked by Petro's comparison of Israeli leaders' dehumanizing and genocidal statements about Palestinians with "what the Nazis said about the Jews."
Petro also called Gaza—often described as the "world's largest open-air prison"—a "concentration camp."
After Israel accused Petro of "hostile and antisemitic statements" and "support for the horrific acts of Hamas terrorists," the Colombian president hit back, saying Israel's war on Gaza is "genocide."
Last month, Colombia asked the International Court of Justice to join the South African-led genocide case against Israel, which is supported by over 30 nations. In January, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government to prevent genocidal acts.
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U.S. House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.) put out a "title-by-title overview" of priorities and announced plans for a legislative markup on May 23 while Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) released the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act, which includes over 100 bipartisan bills.
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Friends of the Earth senior program manager Chloe Waterman declared that "House Republicans have proposed a dead-on-arrival Farm Bill framework that puts Big Ag's profits over everyone else: communities, family farmers, consumers, states and local rule, farmed animals, and the planet."
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As Jones Cox detailed:
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