House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) released the following statement today on the Obama Administration’s listing of the Gunnison Sage-Grouse as threatened under the Endangered Species Act:

“Despite the considerable work and significant investments from the states of Colorado and Utah, the Obama Administration took a drastic step today by listing the Gunnison Sage-Grouse as threatened.   This decision is further evidence that the Administration is more interested in meeting arbitrary settlement deadlines than basing decisions on actual science and data.  This action puts in jobs across the West in jeopardy and will severely restrict job-creating economic activities on over a million acres, including residential and commercial development, energy production, power transmission line maintenance, recreation, and grazing. All this for a species that Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe admits is not currently facing extinction.

“The Obama Administration is once again defying its claim to make regulatory policies transparent to the American people. That is why earlier this year the House of Representatives passed common sense legislation to update the Endangered Species Act and make the law more effective for species and people by using the best available science and increasing transparency, including the work of states, local stakeholders, and communities.

“This listing follows hundreds of other listings resulting from the 2011 mega-settlement between the Department of the Interior and two litigious groups.  It foreshadows the intentions of the Obama Administration in coming months with the potential listing of the Greater Sage Grouse in portions of eleven western states.”

 

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