Today, the House passed H.R. 6784, the Manage Our Wolves Act. Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) issued the following statement:

“Scientific evidence conducted by Fish and Wildlife under multiple administrations from both sides of the aisle shows the wolf has recovered and thrived. It’s time to delist. Communities and species will continue to lose when special interest litigants and activist judges dictate Endangered Species Act policy. That’s the status quo, and today the House voted to move ESA policy in a better direction.”

The bill had bipartisan support from representatives, including:

“The recovery of the gray wolf is a success story for the Endangered Species Act, and the best available science must determine whether species remain listed. States are best-equipped to effectively manage gray wolves and respond to the needs of the ecosystem and local communities. I am pleased that this bipartisan legislation to return management of the gray wolf species to the states, as requested by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and as proposed by the Obama administration, has been approved by the House. I urge prompt consideration in the Senate.” – U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)

“If you live in Wisconsin, especially northern Wisconsin, it might be necessary for us to actually manage this population because it's good for the environment. It’s good for the wolves. It's good for the cattle. It's actually really good for our deer population. And so I just think this just makes common sense. Frankly, I believe that our states are far more in tuned in understanding the ecosystem of their state than Bureaucrats in Washington.” – U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.)

“I have to say in my 28 years in this body I have never seen so much nonsense, misinformation, and propaganda put out on a bill as being put out on this one. We followed the Endangered Species Act. We did what was said, the scientists said we recovered and they delisted the wolves. These were scientists that did it, it wasn’t any politician. You had a group out there, these extreme environmentalists and others who have captured our party, went to a judge in Washington D.C. that has no idea what’s going on at all and convinced that judge that the wolves had not recovered because they had not been reestablished all the way to Des Moines, Iowa.” – U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.)

The House also passed 10 additional Committee bills this week:

H.R. 2615 (U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo, R-Miss.), H.R. 4033 (U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo.), H.R. 5636 (U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.), H.R. 5787 (U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla.), H.R. 6146 (U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.), H.R. 6666 (U.S. Rep. Daniel Donovan, R-N.Y.), S. 440 (U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.), S. 2074 (U.S. Sen John Hoeven, R-N.D.), H.R. 5706 (U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii) and H.R. 6064 (U.S. Rep. Thomas Suozzi, D-N.Y.).

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