Donald Trump’s Republican-majority government is planning to roll back the Endangered Species Act, one of our most powerful wilderness protection tools, so that corporations can drill for oil and clearcut forests.
The act was created in 1973 to protect the bald eagle, but it has also come to be vital to conserving gray wolves, elk and hundreds of other endangered animals. If parts of it are scrapped, it will be harder to add species to the list, spelling disaster for the Pacific walrus and dozens of other species at risk.
The chairperson of the House Natural Resources Committee, Republican Rob Bishop, has said he would “love to invalidate” the law and we know Trump wants to expand fossil fuel production and tear down environmental restrictions at all costs.
Tell Congress the only thing that should go extinct is fossil fuel addiction. Protect the Endangered Species Act!
When the act was passed more than 40 years ago, there were only around 800 bald eagles in the lower 48 states. Now there are more than 14,000. The gray wolf population was down to just 200 animals before it was placed on the list. Now it’s up to 3,500. There are actually too many success stories to count. The Endangered Species Act has been nearly 100 percent effective in protecting endangered animals in this country.
There’s only one reason such a successful piece of legislation could be rolled back: exploiting the natural resources in protected habitats. That means allowing more logging in national forests, easing drilling restrictions and declaring open season on any animal that gets in the way of the extraction industry.
SumOfUs members have been protecting endangered species and habitat from corporate greed for years. In the UK, when a Conservative government wanted to open national parks to natural gas fracking, nearly 130,000 of us stepped up to stop it.
We can convince Congress that this historic conservation law is worth saving. Join us in asking Congress to protect the Endangered Species Act.
More information
Daily Kos. 17 January 2017.
The Washington Post. 17 January 2017.