07.15.15

Ranking Member Grijalva Leads 89 Democrats in Asking Defense Conferees to Reject Anti-Environment Riders in National Defense Bill

Washington, D.C. – Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and 88 other House Democrats sent a letter today to House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders asking them to keep provisions attacking endangered species and public lands out of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). A conference committee began meeting this week to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.

While the Senate bill has few anti-environment riders, the House version includes provisions that would drive the extinction of the greater-sage grouse, the lesser prairie chicken and the American burying beetle, as well as language that would withdraw millions of acres of U.S. public lands from management by responsible federal agencies.

None of these riders are defense-related. Today’s letter, accessible at http://1.usa.gov/1LjkCLw, requests that they all be rejected in the conference committee report, which could see a vote as early as this month.

“This bill should be about protecting Americans from security threats, not giving away our natural resources and trashing the Endangered Species Act,” Grijalva said. “These riders are just another attempt by House Republicans to undermine sound management of U.S. public lands and drive the extinction of American wildlife one species at a time – a tactic we’ve seen many times before and one they’re obviously going to repeat. The Department of Defense did not ask for any of this language and existing resource management processes are working well. Republicans should focus on protecting the American people from the very real threats we face rather than pushing bad environmental ideology in a defense bill.”

“The sage grouse rider included in the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act cedes unprecedented control over federal land to states and raised serious Constitutional concerns by limiting judicial review of projects on federal lands,” said Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands. “I opposed these efforts then and will continue to do so as an appointee to the Conference Committee tasked with ironing out the differences between the House and Senate bills. I will be urging my colleagues to oppose the sage grouse rider, in part because it would endanger the significant efforts and progress made by a collaboration of organizations currently involved in protecting the sagebrush habitat. I look forward to working with my House and Senate colleagues to ensure we put forward the strongest bill possible – one that supports our service members and efforts to preserve the land they so honorably protect.”

The letter is supported by the following conservation groups:

American Bird Conservancy

American Rivers

Californians for Western Wilderness

Center for Biological Diversity

Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists

Clean Water Action

Defenders of Wildlife

Earthjustice

Endangered Species Coalition

Environmental Defense Fund

Environmental Protection Information Center

Friends of the Earth

Greenpeace

Klamath Forest Alliance

League of Conservation Voters

National Audubon Society

Natural Resources Defense Council

Rocky Mountain Wild

Sierra Club

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

The Wilderness Society

Western Watersheds Project