'Disingenuous To The Point Of Gaslighting': Jared Huffman Torches GOP Bill On Endangered Species Act

3 days ago

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) spoke about a Republican bill targeting the Endangered Species Act.

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Transcript

00:00recognize Ranking Member Huffman for his opening statement. Thank you, Madam Chair, and with all due respect to

00:07Chair Westerman,

00:08the Endangered Species Act is not broken. It's just inconvenient for certain

00:13industry polluters. Any other bill in America that had a 99% success rate as this

00:20legislation does at keeping the listed species from going extinct would be held up as a model of

00:26success. And to the extent that it has failed in recovering species, which we all want to see,

00:32it is because our Republican friends are endlessly at war

00:36with the budgets of the wildlife agencies that are tasked with doing that important recovery work, with protecting these species, with

00:44doing the science, with doing the habitat restoration. So it is deeply

00:49disingenuous to the point of gaslighting to suggest that anything about this legislation before us

00:55which

00:57absolutely weakens the Endangered Species Act, that anything about this is about making the law work better or bringing it back to its

01:04original intent. The original intent was to save species from extinction. This bill is part of an extinction

01:11agenda, which means that we are back in this subcommittee once again

01:15experiencing deja vu because there's nothing new about this. We have seen this extinction

01:19agenda for the past few years over and over again. The other

01:23deja vu feeling today is

01:26because there is crazy, destructive, incompetent, corrupt things happening in the executive branch of our government right now. And

01:35the independent branch of government, the Article 1 branch that our founders

01:40created in order to serve as a check on abuses of presidential power, as a check on

01:47corruption and incompetence, is totally missing in action.

01:51Because this Republican majority thinks that it works for

01:55President Trump, as opposed to being an independent branch of government that serves as a check on power. And so we see

02:03endless attempts to curry favor, to kiss up, and of course the

02:08quintessence of that is the bill before us today to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

02:15Something that was actually floated as a joke by comedian Stephen Colbert back in

02:202010, but now apparently the joke is on us. Look,

02:25we should be talking about the mass firings of federal employees, facility closures, chaotic

02:31government takeovers by Elon Musk and his doge tech bros, things that are leaving

02:37agencies unable to deliver essential services from essential public safety to mitigating wildfire risk to protecting our irreplaceable

02:45natural resources.

02:46The majority is holding the third hearing in three months

02:50focused on weakening the Endangered Species Act. This does nothing to

02:55solve the countless problems our constituents are struggling with. In fact, it does the opposite because the ESA isn't just about wildlife.

03:01It helps protect clean air, clean water, and the natural systems that sustain all of us.

03:07Now let's not kid ourselves about this bill. It is the culmination, it is not the culmination of a

03:15honest working group or a thoughtful bipartisan discussion.

03:18And I noticed that not a single one of my suggestions from that working group was included in this bill.

03:24This is simply a rehash of pro-extinction

03:28talking points from industry polluters and dressed up like it's something new. It makes the ESA weaker,

03:34it makes it harder to do all the things that actually protect

03:38species from extinction and easier to do all of the things that leave them

03:43unprotected. Now,

03:44our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they want to speed up permitting timelines.

03:48Well, guess what? The Fish and Wildlife Service has lost approximately 50% of its information and planning

03:56for planning and

03:58consultation team. These are the key personnel, the biologists, the recovery teams, the project managers who consult with federal agencies and

04:06applicants early in the planning process to help avoid

04:09delays while protecting

04:11endangered species. This is the office that speeds things up and it is being gutted. Over 400 Fish and Wildlife Service

04:19employees have been fired nationwide. This includes staff at National

04:23Wildlife Refuges and we hear more cuts are coming.

04:28These cuts are causing chaos across the agency, disrupting recovery efforts, delaying critical actions to protect

04:34endangered species. If we're serious about the ESA, we should at least be talking about that stuff instead of

04:41recycling these tired old bills. Now,

04:45back to the Gulf of America.

04:48Stephen Colbert proposed this as a joke in 2010 and it's important to remember what was going on at the time,

04:54what led to the joke. There was a blown BP oil well that gushed oil

05:00for many, many weeks and months, killed 11 people, crushed the coastal economy of the Gulf, and Colbert

05:08used the name change as a gimmick to raise awareness of the disaster that dragged on for five months,

05:15something our Republican friends seem to have forgotten about as they advance their dirty drilling

05:21agenda. It is weirdly appropriate that they are taking what started out as a joke and

05:27actually moving it forward as part of their drill baby drill

05:31agenda and unfortunately, that means the joke is on us. I yield back.

'Disingenuous To The Point Of Gaslighting': Jared Huffman Torches GOP Bill On Endangered Species Act

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