Peace Garden News

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, voted for two Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions he cosponsored to reverse restrictive Endangered Species Act (ESA) rulemakings by the Biden administration.

“The Biden administration’s over-regulation agenda completely disregards the real life impacts its onerous rules have on Americans across the country,” said Senator Cramer. “Agencies are gladly imposing additional bureaucratic hurdles for landowners in the name of conservation, yet these rules only preserve and expand executive power. I voted to end this overreach and am pleased to see both CRAs pass.”

The first resolution retains the term “habitat,” which Senator Cramer supported when the definition was established in 2020. By rescinding it, the Biden administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) exposed landowners and businesses to burdensome regulations and added uncertainties. Particularly for areas with a federal nexus through permits or funding, a “critical habitat” designation can elicit increased scrutiny, use limitations, and higher costs.

The second resolution rolls back a FWS decision to reclassify the northern long-eared bat (NLEB) as “endangered,” where before it was “threatened.” The FWS in its final rulemaking pointed to the white-nose syndrome (WNS), an infection which spreads among NLEBs, as a primary reasons for the more stringent classification. However, listing the as species “endangered” and does little to address WNS. Rather, local stakeholders will bear the brunt of the rule’s effects: it will impede infrastructure and development projects by unnecessarily forcing more into the FWS backlog.

Background:

The Biden administration finalized its rule dropping the “habitat” distinction on June 24, 2022. Click here to read the statement Senator Cramer issued when he and his colleagues introduced first introduced CRA to reverse it.  

FWS published its final rule designating the northern long-eared bat as “endangered” on November 30, 2022. Shortly thereafter, it pushed the effective date to March 31, 2023. Senator Cramer joined his colleagues in sending a letter to FWS Director Martha Williams to raise concerns about the rule.

Original source can be found here.