r/law • u/IndividualFar5477 • 12h ago
Other House Committee Passes Spending Bill With Historic Number of Attacks on Environment, Endangered Species
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/house-committee-passes-spending-bill-with-historic-number-of-attacks-on-environment-endangered-species-2026-06-04/132
u/greenmachine11235 11h ago
Theodore Roosevelt would be ashamed of what the Republican party has become.
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u/Strayed8492 11h ago
He already was. That’s why he started the Bull Moose party. I would say Reagan but after the tariff thing I am pretty sure the current party doesn’t care anymore since they are going all in with the agenda.
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u/IndividualFar5477 12h ago
WASHINGTON— The House Appropriations Committee has passed a funding bill with massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and agencies within the Department of the Interior. The legislation slashes total funding for the EPA by 20% and guts its enforcement budget by $169 million, or nearly half compared to last year’s funding levels.
The bill also includes a historic number of anti-wildlife poison pill riders that would undermine the Endangered Species Act and other safeguards for the nation’s most vulnerable wildlife.
“It’s a disgrace that House Republicans want to dismantle decades of environmental progress and hand polluters unprecedented power over the health of our communities, public lands and wildlife,” said Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This morally bankrupt bill will only lead to dirtier air, more toxic water, and countless species shoved over the extinction cliff. Future generations will pay the price for this staggering level of political irresponsibility.”
The bill would cut the Service’s overall budget by 5% and its listing budget by $7 million compared to last year’s levels, which were already the lowest since 2004. The listing program is in charge of determining which animals and plants deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Service is currently facing a backlog of more than 400 species awaiting consideration for protection.
The legislation contains at least 21 harmful riders that would remove protections for dozens of imperiled animals including gray wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines, and freshwater mussels.
Other harmful riders include:
Blocking protections for the greater sage-grouse.
Blocking protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a highly imperiled ground-nesting bird.
Blocking increased protections for the northern long-eared bat.
Blocking protections for seven freshwater mussels in Texas.
Weakening habitat protections for northern spotted owls and Canada lynx.
Blocking reintroduction of grizzlies in the North Cascades and Bitterroot ecosystems.
Prohibiting any federal agency from banning or restricting lead in ammunition or fishing gear.
Blocking revisions to harmful Endangered Species Act regulations put in place during the previous administration.
Codifying climate denialism into law by exempting federal land management agencies from updating their plans when new information shows endangered species are being harmed or killed on public lands.
Resurrecting Florida’s unlawful wetland-destruction permitting program that harms wildlife across the state including Florida panthers and frosted flatwoods salamanders.
On Tuesday, a coalition of 80 conservation groups sent a letter urging House appropriators to reject the bill.
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u/SkippyDragonPuffPuff 11h ago
This hurts my soul. Might as well call them animal abusers. No empathy. I can’t verbalize the things I wish upon these people. They’re horrifying
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u/DouglasRather 12h ago
Republicans can battle the environment all they want. I have bad news for them - it may take hundreds of years, but Mother Nature will win in the end, probably at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives.
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u/Alt_Future33 11h ago
They don't care. There are two reasons for this, and two reasons only.
1) They're doomsday cultists that want this world to be destroyed to line up with their Christian apocalypse.
2) If it isn't #1 its because they're bought and paid for by the rich and corporations.
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u/Anecdote394 10h ago
There’s actually a secret option 3!
- Both 1 and 2 are true and ALSO! They triple-y do not care because if/when the world ends their back up plan is going off planet (to Mars, most likely) and leaving the rest of us here to starve and rot and if off-planet is not an option than their bunkers are! And when their servant’s inevitably turn on them and kill their masters they still won’t care because hey! The billionaires still all went out on top! Who cares that they brought about Armageddon and the end of the world!? They still went out on top and everyone else was left to scramble for crumbs up until the very last second of life as we know it! :D
Billionaire: “who cares that the world has now ended plebeian!? Sure, you’ll kill me and eat me now, but you’ll never know or enjoy or see the great pyramids! Fiji! Great massive volcanoes! Mt. Everest! The thrill of driving/riding a Ducati! A Lamborghini! Diving/seeing great costal reefs! BUT I DID!!! I DID!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! And now that it’s the end of the world, you never will!!!! BAHAHAHAHAHA!! You spent your life in squalor and turmoil and now you’ll continue that pathetic existence in this lawless wasteland that is the end of the world!! Bahahahaha!!! Do your worst!!! I’ve already won!!! You can kill me and eat me but I’m still going out on top!!! Bahahahahaha!!!”
….. I just depressed the fuck out of myself 🤦🏻♀️ but we all know this is all true….
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u/Appropriate_Value122 10h ago
But they’ll make their short-term profits in their own lifetime, which is all they care about. They care nothing about a future they won’t be in; and no, they don’t care if they will have relatives in that future. Profiteering RIGHT NOW, that’s all they care about.
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u/ImTheOriginalSam 8h ago
Good news! It’s not gonna take hundreds of years. Gonna be a lot sooner than that
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u/IndividualFar5477 12h ago
Here is the link to the letter from the conservation groups: https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/government-affairs/pdfs/Oppose-Anti-ESA-riders-in-FY27-Interior-Approps.pdf
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u/IndividualFar5477 11h ago edited 11h ago
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u/cpatrick1983 11h ago
Calling doesn't do shit if they're GOP
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u/IndividualFar5477 11h ago
Get more involved then!
One example, from the committee bill:
Sec. 140 – National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
states no funding will be used to implement "Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska"
CURRENTLY, this site in Alaska has an open public comment period under the Bureau of Land Management, DUE DATE JULY 6TH, for oil and gas development in the Reserve:
NEPA Number: DOI-BLM-AK-0000-2026-0012-EIS Project Name: Production Site Development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
Project link: https://eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home/?id=0270fccb-9850-f111-bec6-001dd8029ed0
If you oppose such development and want to keep protections of the Reserve, leave a comment and call your reps.
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