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Barrasso Pushes Rule to Quash Wolf Lawsuits

Wyoming is already in charge of its wolves, but U.S. Sen. John Barrasso has set out to ensure that the courts can’t ever jeopardize the state’s jurisdiction.

His congressional counterparts, so far, agree.

A delisting provision prohibiting legal challenges of wolf delisting in Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan is bundled with Barrasso’s Hunting Heritage and Environmental Legacy Preservation for Wildlife Act, dubbed the HELP Act. The legislation passed committee 14-to-7 on July 26, but not before Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., failed to quash what some call an end run around the Endangered Species Act.

“I have a strong interest in preserving the publicly informed, science-driven process that currently exists for making endangered species determinations,” Carper told fellow legislators at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works meeting last week. “And I’m not sure that legislatively delisting species is consistent with that interest.”

Carper’s amendment was shot down.

In addition to prohibiting legal challenges, the HELP Act also automatically returns wolf management to the Great Lakes states, where about 3,500 of the large canines roam.

The 300-some wolves in Wyoming have been under state jurisdiction since a U.S. Court of Appeals decided this spring to overturn a 2014 decision that sided with environmental groups.

Barrasso pointed out that his bill has bipartisan support, including that of Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

“The Obama administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the gray wolf in Wyoming and the western Great Lakes only to be dragged through seemingly never ending court processes,” Barrasso said. “These sections [of the bill] put those species’ management back where they always belonged, in the hands of the state.”

The provisions, Barrasso pointed out, do not prohibit Fish and Wildlife from promulgating future rules listing the gray wolf as threatened or endangered.

Read full article:  Barrasso Pushes Rule to Quash Wolf Lawsuits

Photo by Footloose Montana.

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