▶ 0:19:24Chair Ricketts: This subcommittee of the environment and public works committee on fisheries, water, and wildlife. This opportunity to review the endangered species act will come to order. I appreciate the witnesses being here, and ranking member senator schiff as well. Before we start, I want to recognize that nebraska is experiencing wildfires that are the largest we have had.
▶ 0:19:58Chair Ricketts: It has burned more than 750,000 acres of land in my state. That is close to 2% of our total state land area. I have an appreciation for the entire state. We have firefighters from across nebraska. We have federal firefighters. We have the national guard. We have neighbors from iowa that are helping out.
▶ 0:20:23Chair Ricketts: I certainly want to pray for all those that are impacted by these terrible wildfires. I want to ensure these impacted communities know that we are there to support them and will give them the resources to help. As wildfires spread throughout the U.S., building communities is a big part of the effort.
▶ 0:20:46Chair Ricketts: Other environmental laws that could hinder after a natural disaster -- the endangered species act was to cover endangered species. The actual metrics raise concerns for whether the law is achieving its goal. Since the esa was enacted, 57 of more than 100 listed species have been delisted.
▶ 0:21:13Chair Ricketts: That means roughly 3% of the species ever listed as endangered or threatened have recovered. The U.S. fish and wildlife service have reported only 4% of the listed species are improving. A 3% or 4% success rate does not sound very good to me. The agency projected 300 species to recover by now. Yet only 57 have hit that benchmark.
▶ 0:21:39Chair Ricketts: These numbers raise concerns about whether the esa is sufficiently recovering species. The ultimate goal of the law is to recover species to the point that federal protections are no longer needed. It suggests the certain framework is not achieving this. It causes greater uncertainty or delay for complicated infrastructure projects without significant recovery outcomes.
▶ 0:22:04Chair Ricketts: In nebraska, the listed species include the surgeon, the whooping crane, the piping clover, and others. Detecting, protecting, and recovering these species is led by state led conservation efforts, and nebraska is a great example.
▶ 0:22:22Chair Ricketts: When I was governor of nebraska, I led the recovery rotation program, considered a major success story for its collaborative basin-wide efforts between nebraska, colorado, and wyoming. It recovered listed species in the river. It increased particularly the whooping crane to historically high levels. However, this vc still has not been recovered.
▶ 0:22:51Chair Ricketts: Nebraska's shows that goals are best pursued when they are collaboration based and predicted for all stakeholders involved. While there are local success stories, a lot of work needs to be done to improve the implementation. First, we focus on recovery. The purpose is not simply to list species, but to recover them to the point where federal protection is no longer needed.
▶ 0:23:19Chair Ricketts: Efforts have been made to improve clarity in esa implementation -- for instance, U.S. fish and wildlife service took steps to provide additional regulatory clarity by providing clear definitions of habitat. Another critical issue is transparency and accountability for fish and wildlife. In nebraska, state agencies collect data that is used alongside federal information to inform state decisions.
▶ 0:23:48Chair Ricketts: State experts often have boots on the ground and a director standing with local species and habitats. Improving communication, coordination, and transparency should be an essential part of implementation moving forward. Programs like the platinum recovery implementation program suggests this can work, but similar models have not been consistently applied elsewhere.
▶ 0:24:15Chair Ricketts: Hopefully, the esa it will achieve its goal of recovering species and removing them from federal protection. Congress needs to improve the law that has created more regulatory uncertainty than tangible success. I look forward to a discussion for more witnesses on the endangered species act, and the need to better support species recovery. I will recognize the ranking member, senator schiff, for his opening statement.
▶ 0:24:43Sen. Schiff: Thank you, john ricketts, for calling this hearing today. It is a pleasure working with you on this subcommittee. I thank you to our witnesses for coming today. The endangered species act, may be more than any other law, represents the ideal of trying to leave the world in a better place than we found it. In 1973, congress came together and observe that species were going extinct as a result of economic growth and development.
▶ 0:25:15Sen. Schiff: To address this, congress declared that all federal departments and agencies shall seek to conserve endangered species and threatened species. It may surprise some to learn that this historic legislation passed the senate by a vote of 92 to zero. We can't do that for anything other than a post office naming these days. The house supported by 355 to four. President nixon, a republican, signed into law.
▶ 0:25:45Sen. Schiff: We came together. Today, it is hard to imagine. But this is how serious the situation was in the 1960's and 1970's, in terms of species and extinction. We would do well to take stock of just how far we have come since 1973. All the species that have ever been listed as endangered or threatened -- 99% of them have been saved by the endangered species act. That is a remarkable record.
▶ 0:26:13Sen. Schiff: Bald eagle is around today largely because of the endangered species act. There are numerous other success stories, such as the peregrine falcon, the american alligator, and the california condor. Today, I'm greatly concerned that we are no longer providing our fish and wildlife service with what it needs to effectively implement the law.
▶ 0:26:38Sen. Schiff: Since january 2025, almost 25 percent of the agency has left federal service. The center for biological diversity found that nearly 530 agents have left the agency. We cannot do the science required, section seven consultations, or listing decisions, without proper expertise. Simply put, there is a staffing crisis. It is well-known that fish and wildlife service has been under resourced for years. It proceeds this administration.
▶ 0:27:09Sen. Schiff: An analysis found the agency receives about 50% of the funding required to properly implement the endangered species act. In 20 16, analysis by the center for biological diversity found that congress only provides about 3.5% of the funding that fish and wildlife service scientists estimate is needed to recover species. The recent loss of staffing makes that situation even worse.
▶ 0:27:38Sen. Schiff: According to documents obtained through the freedom of information act, more than half of our nation's wildlife currently lack the staff to fulfill their missions. The national wildlife director says we provide important habitat for threatened or endangered species, and with a total of 20 senators, I wrote a letter to the secretary and director nesbitt, in december, to raise the alarm.
▶ 0:28:11Sen. Schiff: Mike with almost every letter I have sent, we are still waiting for a response from the department of the interior. We are here today because we all want to see the fish and wildlife service move faster. We want more species to become fully recovered. That is what makes the -- makes delisting possible. This is a bipartisan goal. My republican colleagues want species to be successful in recovery, as I do. We may differ in how we get there, but we all want to get there.
▶ 0:28:42Sen. Schiff: I'm confident we cannot get there if the service does not have the experts and resources it needs. Encouraged by some ideas our witnesses are bringing to the table today. Contrary to popular belief, I think there are many bipartisan avenues to explore for improving the implementation of the endangered species act.
▶ 0:28:59Sen. Schiff: We can all get behind proposals to modernize the service's work, automate processes with machine learning and ai, provide greater flexibility to landowners, and promote greater collaboration with the state's expertise. I'm very interested in embracing some of the innovative approaches of states, including the state of california.
▶ 0:29:24Sen. Schiff: The golden state is moving beyond the dichotomy of choosing between infrastructure development and environmental protection, and sewing it -- showing you can do both with smart policy. Habitat planning can cover whole regions, with a strategy to protect regions. We can clear projects in the plain area instead of going through individual review. California uses a tool called consistency determination where a state can improve a project that has already gone through federal approvals.
▶ 0:29:54Sen. Schiff: We need to think more outside the box. To do it, we need proper resources at the federal level. The scientists and experts at fish and wildlife are a dedicated bunch being asked to do a lot with a little. I hope for greater collaboration between the service and congress. This is a great place to start. Once again, thank you to our witnesses, and thank you, Mr. chairman, for bringing this together.
▶ 0:30:18Chair Ricketts: Thank you ranking member schatz. And I agree. We do want to make sure we are covering species. I know we will turn to our witnesses for their opening remarks. Our first witness is tom riley, water resources and environmental consultant, on behalf of riley consulting. Mr. riley was director of the nebraska department of natural resources while I was governor. It is good to see you.
▶ 0:30:48Chair Ricketts: Thank you for testifying on this subcommittee today. At the department, Mr. riley oversaw statewide water allocation, permitting compliance, and stakeholders across agricultural, municipal, and environmental sectors. He also serves as a lecturer at the university of nevada scan and teaches courses on water resources and environmental policy.
▶ 0:31:13Chair Ricketts: His experience in state led conservation efforts, combined with private experience -- that expertise and academic background makes him uniquely qualified to speak on the challenges and opportunities. Mr. riley, you are recognized for your five minutes. Five minutes. Just five minutes. Opening statement.
▶ 0:31:32Mr. Riley: Chairman ricketts and ranking member schiff and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to come here today and talk about the challenges and opportunities in the usa. My perspective comes from several roles. I am a professional engineer specialized in water resources and environmental restoration.
▶ 0:31:56Mr. Riley: I previously served as the director of the nebraska department of natural resources, where I represented nebraska in collaborative recovery programs and implementation. I also teach college level engineering classes.
▶ 0:32:13Mr. Riley: From that perspective, many esa challenges in the western united states are fundamentally systems management challenges, balancing river ecology, water infrastructure, and working landscapes that support agriculture, communities, and regional academies, places where humans and ecological function must operate together. Across much of the west, species recovery occurs where water is scarce and heavily managed.
▶ 0:32:42Mr. Riley: Large systems such as the platte river and missouri river in nebraska support irrigation, municipal water supply, flood control, hydropower, and navigation. Esa implementation requires coordinated management across states. Nebraska's experience shows how esa implementation can function effectively within these working landscapes when programs provide transparency and long-term certainty. One example is restoration of the eastern nebraska wetlands.
▶ 0:33:15Mr. Riley: These wetlands occur in soils that are difficult to farm and develop. Restoration has proven to be the most sustainable long-term land use, supporting species recovery while providing storage, -- flood storage and open space for people. The second example is the platte river recovery and implementation plan. This cooperative effort among states and federal agencies, water use groups, and conservation organizations takes a basin-scale approach.
▶ 0:33:43Mr. Riley: It combines habitat restoration, water management, scientific monitoring across the river system, and addressing esa obligations. Equally important, the program is structured with increments until 2032, providing clear planning horizons that allows states and water users to commit resources, with the goal to achieve a program, not continually looking for more. That planning horizon matters.
▶ 0:34:16Mr. Riley: In western water systems, infrastructure investments and habitat restoration are planned over decades. Stakeholders know that agreements will remain stable long enough for those investments to succeed, and that the goal line does not change. Transparency and regulatory certainty are essential to maintaining the trust required for these programs.
▶ 0:34:39Mr. Riley: Nebraska's experience reflects that of many western states, were species recovery must involve interstate water agreements. These experiences suggest several principles to strengthen esa implementation. First, species recovery in the west must occur within working landscapes and support agriculture, communities, and economies. Second, conservation should be grounded in the hydrology and soils.
▶ 0:35:10Mr. Riley: Third, esa implementation should coordinate with existing state water management and interstate governance. Finally, transparency and clearly defined milestones are essential for long-term participation. Based on discussions with nebraska stakeholders, there are practical actions congress could consider right now. Congress could codify key elements of habitat analysis and withdrawal of the blanket section to improve transparency and regulatory clarity.
▶ 0:35:42Mr. Riley: For example, considerations of economics and national security. Congress could consider conservation of public lands essential to species recovery across the united states. And congress could invest more in proactive conservation under the esa section 78 one, incorporating ecological considerations early, helping prevent new listings.
▶ 0:36:07Mr. Riley: From an engineering perspective, designing ecological function in projects early is much better than retrofitting them later. When implemented with collaboration, transparency, grounded in current science, and regulatory certainty, the esa can protect species while supporting communities across the west and later landscapes and water systems to sustain our farms and ranches that are working to feed the world.
▶ 0:36:36Mr. Riley: Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:36:41Chair Ricketts: Thank you, Mr. riley. I think that platte river implementation was first talked about in 2005-2006, and was very controversial at the time, the long-term nature of it. It's gone for 13 years and we have another 13 year extension. All right. Next, we will hear from brian yablonski.
▶ 0:37:13Chair Ricketts: He helps lead national parks management and national forest restoration with endangered species recovery for the great salt lakes market-based private lands stewardship. He served as president of the florida wildlife conservation commission to manage florida's wildlife. You are recognized for your five minutes.
▶ 0:37:44Mr. Riley: Chairman ricketts, thank you for inviting me to testify on ways to incorporate species recovery. My name is brian yablonski and I serve as ceo of the property and environment research center based in bozeman, montana. For more than 45 years, our work has been focused on a single idea. Incentives matter for conservation. When people benefit from stewardship, they will do more of it.
▶ 0:38:11Mr. Riley: I spent 14 years on the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission. In that role, I worked alongside biologists, landowners, hunters, and conservation groups on recovering species including the manatee, the florida panther, and the tortoise. Time and time again, I saw that conservation works best when it is done with people, not two people. The endangered species acts that's an ambitious goal for covering all species. After 50 plus years, I would like to describe the esa as a tale of two cities.
▶ 0:38:42Mr. Riley: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. In the best of times, it has largely succeeded by preventing extinction, with 99 percent of imperiled species persisting to this day. In the worst of times, it has recovered only about 3% of all listed species. Perc examined the government's own recovery plans and found the fish and wildlife service failed to recover 96% of the species predicted to recover by 2023.
▶ 0:39:12Mr. Riley: These results, while disappointing, should not be surprising. The esa provides too many sticks and too few carrots. Rigid regulations are tools for preventing extinction, not for spurring recovery. To recover species, we must coordinate species and assets. As the late sam hamilton, former director of the service under president obama, summed up -- the incentives are long. If a rare metal is on my property, the value of the land goes up.
▶ 0:39:41Mr. Riley: If a rare bird occupies my land, its value disappears. We cannot achieve the ambitious goal of recovering species without a new mindset and new tools. Across the country, private lands provide habitat for two thirds of are at risk wildlife. States are the principal wildlife managers for the nation. And esa listing can bring resources to each. How those resources are deployed matters.
▶ 0:40:07Mr. Riley: Every dollar spent navigating a notoriously complex consultation and permitting process is a dollar not spent on restoring habitat. Those who bear the cost of recovering species need support, not redtape. Fortunately, there is a lot we could do to supercharge species recovery without sacrificing the esa's effectiveness. I offer three ideas. First, we should consistently reward recovery progress with regulatory relief.
▶ 0:40:36Mr. Riley: That it might be rewarded by species delisting is not enough. As species improve, we should reward success gradually by giving agencies and states more flexibility. Instead of the current one-size-fits-all approach, regulations for threatened species should incorporate incremental recovery goals, and automatically provide regulatory relief as they are met. Recovery need not be an on/off switch.
▶ 0:41:04Mr. Riley: Second, we should shift from top-down mandates to bottom of conservation by formally engaging with states. Today, no recovered species transferred to state management has backslid. I've seen firsthand how states can find noble and effective ways to recover species. The esa encourages such creativity by offering to any state with a comprehensive conservation program the authority to decide whether federal prohibitions apply. This is a kin to how we implement the clean water act.
▶ 0:41:34Mr. Riley: But this robust federalism provision in section six has been hollowed out to agency policy, and we should requote -- restore congress's original intent. Finally, we need to lower the temperature around recovering species. Too often, recovery news has provoked a race to the courtroom rather than a celebration.
▶ 0:41:57Mr. Riley: To fix this, we need a cooling off period, requiring litigants to wait for the service to complete its post delisting period. At the end of the, conservation works best when it brings people together. If we align incentives and reward success, we can dramatically improve the recovery of species across america's landscapes. Thank you.
▶ 0:42:18Chair Ricketts: Thank you, Mr. yablonski. Next, we will hear from jake li. Mr. li is the vice president of conservation policy at the defenders of wildlife. He served as director of the ecological services program, which leads the national work on endangered species conservation and environmental review of federal projects.
▶ 0:42:47Chair Ricketts: Jake has also served in the biden administration deputy assistant administrator at chemical shipyards, where he worked with industry, environmental advocates, states, and others, on regulation. You are recognized for your five minute statement. [inaudible]
▶ 0:43:10Mr. Li: Start over. Good morning, members of the subcommittee. Thank you very much for inviting me to testify today. I am the vice president of conservation policy at the defenders of wildlife. I was the assistant director of the U.S. fish and wildlife service is, which leads work on endangered species.
▶ 0:43:38Mr. Li: I see two ways that congress can heighten service and help other federal agencies advance recoveries with more transparency and more accountability. Congress can encourage agencies to identify policies and approaches that improve how they implement esa. Esa is flexible enough to accommodate these types of improvements. I don't think new legislation is needed here.
▶ 0:44:09Mr. Li: Second, the service needs the capacity to do this work. The outcomes I think we all want to see happen -- cannot happen without agency staff to do the hard day-to-day work. Unfortunately, the service capacity is more diminished than ever. When I worked there, staff are trying to juggle 20 balls at once.
▶ 0:44:37Mr. Li: And this was all before the agency lost a quarter of its staff in the last year. This is an incredible deletion of capacity, and imparts relationships with states, private land rovers -- landowners, and other groups. This includes 40% of the executive team, myself included.
▶ 0:45:02Mr. Li: There were managers with unique knowledge of how each tool is implement it within the fish and wildlife service. The agency has lost several centuries worth of institutional knowledge overnight. Having lost so much capacity, the service will absolutely study -- struggle to meet expectations for recovering species. But congress can help fix this deficit through targeted investments in how the service implements the esa.
▶ 0:45:35Mr. Li: One, more recoveries. Two, more flexibility for landowners. And three, better ways to authorize projects under section seven and section 10. When you start with recovery, I will relate to opportunities. One, if the service were to receive targeted funding for recovery actions, it could begin recovering species soon after a listing, rather than waiting years for a recovery plan to be drafted first.
▶ 0:46:05Mr. Li: We usually actually know how to begin saving a species soon after a listing. The problem is that the funding is not there to carry out these interventions. Another recovery opportunity is that recovery reports to congress. The service can improve its reporting on which species are progressing toward recovery and by how much. Even if that progress does not rise to a level of a delisting.
▶ 0:46:35Mr. Li: White is this incremental progress important? It is important because it can open up new regulatory flexibility and incentivize recovery. Here is one vastly underused example. Under existing esa regulations, the service can offer regulatory flexibility to landowners who demonstrate meaningful progress towards recovery, even if down listing or delisting is only on the horizon.
▶ 0:47:05Mr. Li: This would offer landowners a stronger incentive to help because they would not need to go decades for a delisting before benefiting from regulatory relief. The service is actually applied this approach only a handful of times, notably with the department of defense. I know of two examples, one of which I was personally involved in, in which a military installation gets a few esa requirements on its training activities if it can demonstrate recovery process -- recovery progress.
▶ 0:47:37Mr. Li: Rather than treating esa with regulatory flex ability as a binary on/off switch at the listing, we can think of it is more like a dimmer switch that adjusts as a species shows recovery progress. My final topic is section seven consultations. My written testimony describes five opportunities here. For now, I will say I think there is no better return on investment than continuing to serve the system which is an online tool that streamlines section seven consultations.
▶ 0:48:08Mr. Li: It already saved the equivalent of over 37 full-time salaries annually, to say nothing of the time and cost savings for others. If congress invests in these improvements, I think we will see real progress toward recovery in the coming years. Thank you.
▶ 0:48:25Chair Ricketts: Thank you, Mr. li. I think we are already hearing some common ground ideas. Great start. Thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us here this morning. Now, we will start with around -- a round of five minute questions. I will lead off and then we will turn to the ranking member. Let's start with one of the challenges for the U.S.
▶ 0:48:53Chair Ricketts: Fish and wildlife services -- that decisions are often made without historical scientific data. In many cases, we simply don't have data that dates back 180 years. For example, in nebraska, the habitat of the american beetle has been difficult to find with certainty. The endangered requires decisions to be based on the best available science and data, but those decisions should not rely on speculation when clear evidence does not exist.
▶ 0:49:24Chair Ricketts: This lack of evidence desistance -- consistently defaults to regulation. Agency interpretation of environmental baseline has created challenges in places like the platte river. We have decades of data showing how species respond to current conditions. Policymakers should rely on that existing science rather than assuming the river must be restored to an uncertain historical state. Mr. riley, Mr. lipp -- Mr. yablonski, how can we encourage U.S.
▶ 0:49:53Chair Ricketts: Fish and wildlife to use the best current science?
▶ 0:49:56Mr. Riley: Thank you, senator. You are spot on that we need to use local available science and recognize that that often is the best information we are going to have. I have experienced a couple of times where that is not the case, though. The service, in some instances, will recognize their own data, or maybe you something from a site far away.
▶ 0:50:24Mr. Riley: A lot of times, the data is prepared by an applicant or the stakeholders themselves. I think we need to build on this transparency and trust, and collaborate to make sure that that date it is available and used in the decision-making process.
▶ 0:50:40Chair Ricketts: Let me in a rep for a second. You are saying your experience in the past has been -- say we are looking at something in nebraska. The service is using data may be from someplace else in the platte river that is not nebraska to say these two things are similar. Is that accurate?
▶ 0:50:59Mr. Riley: That is accurate, and it is not good enough to grab the latest and greatest paper somebody wrote if it is not applicable to the area you are looking at. These sites and rivers are very unique. One of your other thoughts on the baseline issue -- we need to really incorporate the idea that our landscapes are already built, especially in the west.
▶ 0:51:25Mr. Riley: They are highly managed in those areas that include dams and other areas like that. They need to be considered. We can consider those as not being there, when they exist.
▶ 0:51:35Chair Ricketts: Mr. yablonski?
▶ 0:51:38Mr. Yablonski: Yes, Mr. chairman. I actually think that how the agency applies planning for species should be more science-based as well. We have something called the 4d rule. It is the rules of the road for an individual species.
▶ 0:51:59Mr. Yablonski: But as you mentioned in your opening comments, if we apply that as a blanket rule where strict regulation is done across the board, it disregards and kind of dismisses science-based recovery for species. The beauty of a more creative use of the 4d rule is to have tailored, science-based rules for each specific species, as opposed to applying sort of a blanket regulation across the board.
▶ 0:52:27Mr. Yablonski: I think that is a way to encourage the agency to do more especially for threatened species and is going to lead to more science-based decisions in the future.
▶ 0:52:35Chair Ricketts: Mr. riley, I want to get back to something you talked about. Talk about the environmental baseline in situations where that creates some false functions. What can we do to address that? What do we need to do to fix that?
▶ 0:52:50Mr. Riley: One example, even though we've talked about how successful it is, the program, the eli river implementation and the platte river implementation program -- we cannot start with not recognizing that we have these working landscapes in place. To be successful with these programs, the baseline has to recognize that if a project comes along, it can't be bearing the entire weight of what the baseline is. It has an incremental impact.
▶ 0:53:22Mr. Riley: Not the impact that you have to go back to the baseline. We need to do a better job than that. I think there is an opportunity within the rules and within the service's ability, to look at that in a different light.
▶ 0:53:34Chair Ricketts: What I think I hear you saying is that if a new project is coming along, it is not fair to say we have got to take it back to 300 years ago, what the platte river was them. Continue to think about where is the platte river today, and what impact is it making on the working landscape we have right now, not something that was 300 years ago that we do not have the data for.
▶ 0:53:59Mr. Riley: And maybe a finer point. If a new project comes along, it should not have to bear the entire weight of that existing baseline condition to be compared to. It's impact is incremental. It cannot fix everything that has already been there for many, many years.
▶ 0:54:16Chair Ricketts: Thank you. Senator schiff?
▶ 0:54:20Sen. Schiff: Thank you, Mr. chairman, and thank you for your testimony. Really very helpful. It seems like one area of overlapping interest and agreement is the idea of providing incentives and rewards for those -- rewards for progress, and flexibility. I wonder if we can drill down a little bit more on that. Mr. yablonski, what concretely do you have in mind, what kind of incentives?
▶ 0:54:56Sen. Schiff: And maybe at the risk of stirring a hornets nest, is there any idea to that with grizzlies or gray wolves, or are we stuck in the binary debate?
▶ 0:55:05Mr. Yablonski: Thank you, Mr. senator. I think you heard me say in your opening statement that recovery does not have to be an on/off switch. I thought it was a pretty good way to look at life. I think one thing that can be done -- d listings will happen or not happen. Often times, especially in the case of grizzly bears, there is a judicial roulette wheel that exists out there.
▶ 0:55:35Mr. Yablonski: Alongside that, we talked about the four d rule, the playbook. You could establish a rule with specific recovery goals. As those recovery goals are met by state and landowners, you could shift incrementally your flexibility to the states and the land rovers.
▶ 0:55:53Mr. Yablonski: And over time, as they are hitting those markers and more management authority is shifting to the states -- by the time you get to the end, they will essentially be managed as if they are delisted, except there would be federal oversight through that process. It is not to diminish delisting, because delisting needs to occur. But I think of the 4d policy as almost insurance. It will go to courts and often get knocked out, but I think it is a more gradual path that can get you to the same place.
▶ 0:56:23Mr. Yablonski: That should be the baseline.
▶ 0:56:29Sen. Schiff: Explain what you mean by the 4d process.
▶ 0:56:33Mr. Yablonski: It is the section of the esa that establishes the management plans for each of the species. It tells the states what they can and cannot do. One of the challenges you have today is that recovery goals and recovery plans are often outside of the 4d. If you put recovery goals inside the rule, there is more incentive for landowners and states to respond, knowing they could get some flexibility.
▶ 0:57:02Sen. Schiff: Does that sound good to you?
▶ 0:57:04Mr. Li: As a general matter, I would support rules to loosen some of the esa regulations as they demonstrate progress. Let me highlight two other opportunities in the rules. One is what I mentioned earlier, the use of section seven consultations, in particular for species on federalists.
▶ 0:57:29Mr. Li: I give the example of the department of defense and how this winding down of regulatory requirements is working really well for some military installations, hoping to recover species. I think that could apply to more types of federal agencies, including the blm, and forest service, to create stronger incentives for agencies to help recover species.
▶ 0:57:53Mr. Li: The other example I will offer is the use of what you mentioned earlier -- habitat conservation funds, which california has more of than any other state. I could mention approaches to habitat conservation plans, in which as a species moves toward recovery, the mitigation requirements of habitat conservation plans would be flexible, or the process for getting it approved is more expeditious because the species is doing better.
▶ 0:58:21Mr. Li: You can imagine the need for less review and easier permitting requirements. To wrap up, there are a number of tools the service actually has.
▶ 0:58:36Sen. Schiff: Mr. yablonski, is this something to incentivize a program -- incentives and rewards -- is this something that requires a legislative fix, or is this something already fully within the discretion of the agency? Would legislative ideas help roman -- promulgate things in that direction?
▶ 0:58:55Mr. Yablonski: I think it is already existing in the law. As jake li has mentioned, this is something the agency could do today. I remember a conversation a couple years ago with a chief scientist at the fish and wildlife service. We were talking about legislation to potentially encourage or nudge this, and he said, but we can already do this. I said, the point is you don't already do this.
▶ 0:59:19Mr. Yablonski: Maybe there would be legislation needed to move this along, but it is within the authority of the agency to use this creative way to move forward.
▶ 0:59:29Sen. Schiff: Thank you very much.
▶ 0:59:31Sen. Capito: Thank you, Mr. chairman. It is nice to be here. And thank the folks on the panel and the witnesses. Certainly, coming from a state like west virginia, we are very, as every state is, familiar with the endangered species act and some of the pluses and some of the minus. In some cases, the esa has at times been used to unnecessarily slow down progress, particularly in our timbering and energy industries.
▶ 1:00:01Sen. Capito: We have had actually some of our construction on our highways going through the mountains, and it has inhibited our ability to really build. I would not even say build quickly. I'm talking decades here. Those impacts are felt everywhere. So I guess I was really pleased to hear from all three of you several words.
▶ 1:00:22Sen. Capito: It seems like there is a lot of agreement on the panel on directions that can make for improvements to alleviate some of these, but also help us understand how the process is. I'm curious to know. I think, Mr. yablonski, you mentioned that the states could play may be a bigger role here. Could you elaborate on that a little bit, what kind of capacities? We were in florida.
▶ 1:00:51Sen. Capito: You have been in several different states.
▶ 1:00:53Mr. Yablonski: I'm a former state wildlife chairman in florida, so I am a little partial to over 200,000 domestic species in north america. They do it pretty well.
▶ 1:01:10Mr. Yablonski: But I think there is another provision in the esa under section six that allows for esa cooperative agreements that could be used -- think of it how we delegate authority in the clean water act and clean air act to the states. Within the statute, it lays out requirements the states would have to hit in order for the fish and wildlife service to shift management of species, oversight of species, permitting species to the states.
▶ 1:01:40Mr. Yablonski: I think in a state like florida, all five of those are very doable. Some of those are habitat acquisition programs and public process, and an agency to actually do this.
▶ 1:01:50Sen. Capito: Why do you think that is not occurring? Is it a lack of trust, that the states don't have capacity? Why is it still so federalized?
▶ 1:02:01Mr. Yablonski: I would say part of it is the mindset at the agency itself. It is hard to shift something directly back to the states. We tried this in florida in 20 12. The service at that time actually, under president obama, actually agreed to do it. The agency was sued right away in florida. Often it results in litigation.
▶ 1:02:29Sen. Capito: I have been korea's -- curious about the northern bat. It has white nose syndrome. It has an illness that is making it, the species, die out. Yet it is on a list, so you have to watch it.
▶ 1:02:48Sen. Capito: How do you see that as conflicting, when you have a species that has an inherent disease that is killing it, and it has nothing to do with the development around it, or the environment, or the habitat, or any kind of activity? How do we balance that? This has been an issue for us. Is it Mr. lee or Mr. lie?
▶ 1:03:17Mr. Li: Lee. One of the last things I did at the U.S. fish and wildlife service was to sign a policy that gives flexibility in that very situation. Do you mean the long ear back?
▶ 1:03:33Sen. Capito: Yes, thank you.
▶ 1:03:34Mr. Li: Many bat species are listed because of white nose syndrome. So the policy we signed is actually to allow, in this case, green energy companies to fund mitigation measures for white air syndrome is a way to meet esa requirements for mortality from winter.
▶ 1:04:01Mr. Li: That is flexibility because you are actually funding the most important needs of the species -- I.e., white nose syndrome -- even though your take is from something completely different, which is winter operations. That gives more flexibility to energy companies.
▶ 1:04:21Sen. Capito: I think there has to be flexibility here. In the end, even if the bat is still suffering from a terminal disease, it is going to naturally -- the habitat, the numbers are going to go down whether it is getting hit by a windmill or not. I don't know. I have always wondered about that. How do you solve that problem? I'm sure if we went back 200,000 years ago, there are species that are no longer here because of the evolutionary nature of life, I guess.
▶ 1:04:51Sen. Capito: The other question I am going to ask -- well, I am out of time. Well, I was going to ask because -- I am from more of the east coast. Senator whitehouse is more east coast. You guys are western. California, midwest. What do you see in terms of differences as you go, really generally? Is there a big difference in terms of looking at species comparing the east, midwest, or west?
▶ 1:05:18Sen. Capito: I have always thought it is more of an issue out west, maybe because there is more federal land. I don't know. Does anyone have an answer for that?
▶ 1:05:26Mr. Yablonski: I think it is interesting. One of the commonalities are large, charismatic species. In florida dealing with the florida panther, the manatee -- then grizzly bears and wolves in montana. They get the attention and suck the oxygen out of the room. It also drains a lot of the resources for the agencies. Some of these species should be coming off listing and we should be putting resources toward other species.
▶ 1:05:53Sen. Capito: Thank you.
▶ 1:05:56Sen. Whitehouse: Thank you very much. I have in mind an image, sort of a graph, that shows the biomass of mammals on planet earth, and the whole graph is filled with images of cattle, and of goats
▶ 1:06:27Sen. Whitehouse: And sheep, and of horses. And then all of human managed livestock, and then down in the corner is this tiny little remaining quadrant for all other living species. We are really running wildlife off of the planet.
▶ 1:06:54Sen. Whitehouse: And that, I think, creates a real value to avoiding unnecessary extinction of species that exist. Mr. li, how successful has the esa been at protecting species when they are listed?
▶ 1:07:15Mr. Li: I think it has been incredibly successful. I think there are hundreds of species that would be extinct by now without esa having been in place over the last 50 plus years. You think about islands like hawaii that are at the epicenter of extinction. Without the funding and protections of the esa, I think we would have lost many, many species in states like hawaii.
▶ 1:07:38Sen. Whitehouse: There is a particularly acute tenancy in this building to only see value in money. And to look at any question in terms of how it can be monetized. It is hard to monetize the extinction of a species.
▶ 1:08:04Sen. Whitehouse: How should we take into account just the moral and environmental value of not crushing that remaining tiny corner of wildlife that exists on our planet, through extinctions, if there is no immediate monetary gain to somebody from that?
▶ 1:08:26Mr. Li: It is a great question. I personally think there is a lot of intrinsic value for all of the species protected under the esa. I don't know if you have heard this before. The next possible cure for disease, right, in a plant, an insect, or a fish, that scientists have yet to discover. Even if there is not a monetary value, I think there is a utilitarian value to humans from a lot of the species that we have yet to uncover.
▶ 1:08:56Sen. Whitehouse: Even that is monetize a bowl. As human beings we can appreciate their value beyond that. I went to delaware bay some years ago to witness the arrival of the red knot, which is a little bird that comes to delaware bay for the smorgasbord of crab eggs that are available to it.
▶ 1:09:27Sen. Whitehouse: The remarkable thing about that is that it was flown -- it has flown up from the tip of south america, kicked off from brazil, flew over the water from brazil all the way to delaware bay. It is such an arduous flight that the bird has to physically morph during the course of that flight in order to make that journey.
▶ 1:09:54Sen. Whitehouse: I flew down to brazil in a jet plane, and this little bird has to do it on its own. And so it is kind of one of the miracles of nature that the creature can do this.
▶ 1:10:11Sen. Whitehouse: And if we screw things up so that those crabs are not there when that bird lambs, and the red knots all starve when they need to be feasting in delaware bay, because the timing has gone askew because we have warmed things up and screwed things up -- I'm prepared to argue that even if it makes exactly zero dollars difference in a person's life, just to know that there is a species out there that does that kind of a thing, you know?
▶ 1:10:45Sen. Whitehouse: We kind of have to defend that stuff. So I hope we can steer away from the monetization fetish that currently shadows are environmental protection. I am out of time.
▶ 1:10:59Chair Ricketts: Thank you very much, senator whitehouse. We are going to go ahead and do another round of five-minute questions. So I will go ahead and kick us off here. The flood control act of 1944 authorize the army corps of engineers to develop and manage the missouri river system, including flood control, navigation, power generation, and water supply. The endangered species act was enacted in 1973.
▶ 1:11:27Chair Ricketts: The way the core operates change significantly as the agency began incorporating species protection requirements into its mandate. When the surgeon and piping clover were listed, the core was required to modify certain river operations to support habitat for those species. Adjustments in flows from the dam has been used to create and maintain sambar habitat used by the piping plover's for nesting.
▶ 1:11:53Chair Ricketts: In addition, river engineering features such as dice and habitat structures have improved situations for the sturgeon. Altering river structures can have complex consequences, and those decisions must carefully weigh both ecological goals and potential risks to people and infrastructure. These changes can protect a species, but sometimes at the cost of human life in flood events, as we have had, on the missouri river in the past.
▶ 1:12:25Chair Ricketts: How can we balance the mission under the endangered species act?
▶ 1:12:29Mr. Riley: Well, they are in a tight spot, in that they have to balance all of those items -- flood control, habitat, water supply. But one way to do that is to recognize that the system has to deliver all of those, and they have to be able to measure and understand the metrics of success to what you do.
▶ 1:12:57Mr. Riley: I worked personally on a design project for some restoration that was part of the core's mission. And that restoration was wiped out by the first big flood. So trying to manage those different dichotomies, and understanding that there is a lot of cost involved, but you have to balance everything together, and do that within the landscape which we have -- we need the flood control.
▶ 1:13:28Mr. Riley: We need some ability to protect our farmland and our ranches, especially the missouri river. As you well know, there are floods from 2011, 20 19. It is hard to come back from those things. So measurable success from a biological standpoint is really important.
▶ 1:13:47Chair Ricketts: Let me dig into that a little bit more. Can you speak to the benefits of habitat modifications, and if these changes are producing measurable recovery metrics? You talk about measurements. What was your experience with the core as far as measurements? You can make something up and talk about whatever you want. The college sturgeon -- did the core have good measurements? It was creating these programs.
▶ 1:14:20Chair Ricketts: What happened after these big floods? Tell me about the kind of experience with those types of metrics. Were there other metrics besides species recovery, but also flood control?
▶ 1:14:30Mr. Riley: There is a lot of data they collect. My own personal opinion is that they have been around for a long they filgd it out to be able to survive on their own. You don't see a bunch of sturgeon gasping for air like carp in a farm field so they know when to move and when not to be there. I think the data shows some of that element.
▶ 1:14:59Mr. Riley: But we continue to collect data but I am not sure if we are really deciding what we are doing with that data. I will give you one example. The platt river recovery program has a connection to stunchen. The connection is this. That any action shouldn't impact downstream sturgeon.
▶ 1:15:24Mr. Riley: I worked on a study that looked at this and in my own personal opinion and the science, the connection isn't is there. But yet we go on to try and make a connection. So I think there is a time and a place and I think Mr. li said it, we need to move on when we have the defined science and say we are good enough. That's a place where pallid sturgeon isn't being affected by it, the program in my opinion.
▶ 1:15:53Mr. Riley: So let's move on and take it off of that system.
▶ 1:16:00Chair Ricketts: What you are saying is look, you think what the science was showing it was not impacting the sturgeon in the missouri river so stop looking there for the impacts and focus on the things going on in the missouri river about how can it impact the sturgeon? Is that a fair summary?
▶ 1:16:17Mr. Riley: It is.
▶ 1:16:18Chair Ricketts: Thank you very much. Senator schiff.
▶ 1:16:23Sen. Schiff: Mr. yablonski in the north and east of my state I am hearing from constituents who are concerned about gray wolves, that they're seeing more and more gray wolves. They've got children outside at play. They're losing horses and cattle and pets to the wolf population.
▶ 1:16:41Sen. Schiff: How do you approach that need to keep the community safe and to be able to protect its investment with the desire to make sure that we protect the species? How should we approach this? How have you approached the issue?
▶ 1:17:01Mr. Yablonski: Thank you, senator. The gray wolf has been a real recovery success story. I am from the greater yellowstone ecosystem area. That's where some of the initial wolves were transplanted from alberta, canada. They've thrived there and we started with something like 1,000 wolves and we up to 6,000 wolves right now.
▶ 1:17:21Mr. Yablonski: But as those wolves move along and as you recognize, there are costs that come with that and the costs oftentimes relates to conflict, especially with cattle, cattle ranchers and livestock ranchers. Credit to organizations, one of the models we have picked up on is something defenders of wildlife when the wolves were introduced in yellowstone they stood up a private compensation fund to offset deprivation of cows and sheep and did a good job monitoring that.
▶ 1:17:51Mr. Yablonski: We think it's a species start to move out two things, we should try to offset the cost that that imposes to landowners who are providing the habitat for species as they move and the other thing is, as species disperse, they may have -- in the rocky mountain west we are delisted in montana and idaho with the gray wolf but as they start to move into other states they get endangered species protections and it sort of flips the incentives a little bit.
▶ 1:18:21Mr. Yablonski: We should be ken -- encouraging that rather than creating a situation where there is strict regulation if wolves are moving into oregon offer utah.
▶ 1:18:33Sen. Schiff: Mr. li, apologies for mispronouncing your name. What are your thoughts on the same subject?
▶ 1:18:39Mr. Li: I want to underscore the importance in your state with the california wolf situation, of adequately staffing the human wolf coexistence work. My organization thinks it's the most important thing to do examples include at the state department level, conflict reduction specialists to work with landowners, in particular ranchers on conflict reduction tools.
▶ 1:19:07Mr. Li: Another example would be the use of range riders in large allotments to help reduce livestock. It's not rocket science. The unfortunate killing of the wolves last year we think was largely because there wasn't enough funding and there wasn't enough deployment of these intervention tools early on. In other words we know what to do. We just need a bit more money to get the work done immediately.
▶ 1:19:39Sen. Schiff: Mr. li, you mentioned in your testimony that the fish and wildlife service has an online tool that helps with endangered species consultations allowing projects to get an answer in minutes regarding whether they need to go through a more form at consultation process. How can this tool be replicated and how can we make use of a.I. Without sacrificing environmental safeguards?
▶ 1:20:03Mr. Li: Great question. This tool is called ipack and it handles a quart he of all the section 7 consultations I mentioned. There are about 10,000 consultations every year. Right now ipack streamlines a whole bunch of section 7 processes.
▶ 1:20:26Mr. Li: So for example if I am a project developer, I can go into ipack, entering -- enter where I want my project to occur. I can enter the details of the project and for a lot of the projects ipack in 15 minutes will tell me whether I am done or I need to talk to a biologist. There are projects that get resolved quickly like this.
▶ 1:20:54Mr. Li: So that's where I mentioned earlier it's an enormous return on investment because if we can continue building out ipack with more information on more species and more types of projects, we can get a lot more project developers using ipack and taking advantage of this expedited online process.
▶ 1:21:12Mr. Li: I can imagine in a few years using a.I., for example, to go through all the mitigation measures in ipack and to figure out what is the most cost-effective and biologically effective set of measures that people can cut to the chase of? All of that information I think is there. We need a bit more capacity to actually do the work.
▶ 1:21:34Sen. Schiff: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:21:37Chair Ricketts: Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:21:38Sen. Whitehouse: On the subject of resources for enforcement of the endangered species act, what has happened during the trump administration to those resources? I have heard stories of as many as 530 staff biologists either fleeing or being thrown out by the -- what I call the doge boys or being fired or driven out.
▶ 1:22:04Sen. Whitehouse: What is your report on what the staffing and funding and morale of the agency looks like right now?
▶ 1:22:14Mr. Li: It's a dismal one. I will put myself as exhibit a.
▶ 1:22:50Mr. Li: >> a lot of empty desks. >> the white house doesn't seem to appreciate at all.
▶ 1:22:57Mr. Li: Exactly. Yet there is the expectation to expedite permitting too. So you can't have both at the same time. You can't have staff that are really sort of downbeaten and expect them to do the most brilliant work when again 25% of their colleagues just disappeared overnight. So that's a real issue. I think that can be addressed with more investments in how the service does its work. >> we were talking about wolves a moment ago.
▶ 1:23:25Mr. Li: I commend anybody who is watching this. Maybe four or five minute long youtube video. When wolves return to the yellowstone.
▶ 1:23:39Mr. Li: It's a beautiful piece of film about what happens when a top species, predator species returns to an environment where it had not been, cascade effect of that to the great benefit of the yellowstone river environment. It's worth four or five minutes of your time to watch that.
▶ 1:24:02Mr. Li: Of course you would see the same thing with sharks returning to reaves and other -- reefs and other apex predators being allowed to rebound. Thank you all very much.
▶ 1:24:17Chair Ricketts: Thank you, senator whitehouse. I take you that you need to take off. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Well, apparently I think senator lummis is coming so I am going to stall for just a little bit longer and give her a couple more minutes to show up. Really quickly I am going to ask one last question and then if senator lummis gets here, we will take her questions and then we will conclude the hearing. Unless there is another senator who shows up and wants to ask questions.
▶ 1:24:47Chair Ricketts: We have seen situations where local stakeholders develop practical solutions to protect species but regular uncertainty makes it difficult to move forward. In nebraska the lake is one of the state's most popular recreational attractions. This lake serves as a habitat for the piping plover which nests along the shoreline and the species is protected under the s.a. Being water levels fluctuate rising water can sometimes flood nests during breeding season.
▶ 1:25:14Chair Ricketts: Local dam operators work to protect the nest by marking them and carefully moving protectsive boards as reservoir levels rose allowing the birds to continue nesting while preventing the nest from being submerged. However there were initial concerns that these actions could violate federal rules because approval had not been granted. Even though the approach was ultimately allowed, the uncertainty created concern.
▶ 1:25:37Chair Ricketts: This example highlights the importance of clear guidance, better communication and greater flexibility so that practical on the ground conservation solutions can move forward without unnecessary delays or threats of enforcement. Mr. yablonski have you seen other examples like this in the service? And how can we better ensure collaboration among our state and federal stakeholders?
▶ 1:26:01Mr. Yablonski: Thank you, chairman. Speckly -- specifically with grizzly bears where I come from, there has been uncertainty with how policy is applied. As we know, grizzly bear populations in the greater yellowstone ecosystem have rebounded dramatically and do warrant delisting. We were at the time of the e.s.a. Something like 100 bears and now we are over 1,000 bears there so the science is pretty settled. The agency recognizes the science is settled.
▶ 1:26:27Mr. Yablonski: And at the same time, there is another species of grizzly bear up in the northwest part of the state, northern continental divide ecosystem and what has been happening is those bears have been recovering successfully as well, over 1,000 bears there. So both of those populations have actually met their recovery goals and should be delisted.
▶ 1:26:46Mr. Yablonski: But what has now happened and it was just a matter of about a year ago that this happened is that those two populations had been creeping closer together and started to intermingle between the two. The service made a decision not to list -- delist either of those grizzly bear populations because what they said is those distipght populations segments were no longer distinct because they had been merging.
▶ 1:27:13Mr. Yablonski: So in other words, we were being penalized for too much success because the bears were growing -- dispersing too much and becoming its own population segment. I think that uncertainty sends a wrong message to landowners and states that wait a second, we were told if this distinct population segment reached this recovery goal we could have a delisting and now you change the rules of the road.
▶ 1:27:37Chair Ricketts: Do you have any thoughts on this? Mr. riley? Think about the piping plover for example.
▶ 1:27:45Mr. Riley: Yeah. Brian makes a great point. The goal line can't change. This is the frustrating component when we work on these success programs and I will use the platt river implementation recovery program as an example. We are coming up on another increment. We have done a lot of great work. There has been recovery, the lease turn has been delisted. The plover we are doing great work to protect it. Whooping cranes are more than we have ever had.
▶ 1:28:16Mr. Riley: Again in my opinion, the sturgeon shouldn't be a player in that program. But I think as we come up and start to negotiate this next round if there is one, it feels like there is a lot of pressure to add more, more water, moreland, more species.
▶ 1:28:37Mr. Riley: When you have a collaborative effort, it's really difficult for those that are participating, the water users, stakeholders to know what they're getting into if the goal line is going to change. So I think that's something where we need to stick by those. Once you have reached a certain limit, a certain recovery, recognize that that's it. We have done our work and we should be in a maintenance level for those programs.
▶ 1:29:08Chair Ricketts: Mr. li, I know senator lummis is here but I will continue on for a a moment. Getting back to the example of the plover and putting up boards to protect nesting sites without having the ok from the fish and wildlife, you were there. What can we do to again here we have the power company trying to do the right thing to protect the nests within the spirit of it but not having the official signoff.
▶ 1:29:31Chair Ricketts: Is there anything we can do to make sure that collaboration is such that they don't have towear wore -- to worry about enforcement action to protect that?
▶ 1:29:42Mr. Li: It's a great question. I will say I can imagine the service adopting more policies and guidance that streamline approval of these positive conservation actions. I know the service has been trying to do this for over a decade in various regional offices and it can only move so fast.
▶ 1:30:00Mr. Li: So as more and more of these examples come up, I think the service is aware of them and can think about nationwide guidance, for example, in situations like this to say if someone is trying to do something good for a species, and it's a positive benefit for the recovery, let's figure out a way to streamline approval or almost make it automated.
▶ 1:30:23Chair Ricketts: Thank you. Senator lummis.
▶ 1:30:25Sen. Lummis: Thank you, chairman ricketts, for assembling the subcommittee today and thank you, witnesses, for being here to talk about the endangered species act. Being from wyoming, I know how helpless people can feel when washington makes decisions to list a species as endangers -- endangered or threatened and that species never comes off the list.
▶ 1:30:50Sen. Lummis: In my office, we call those zombie listings because even if recovery goals are met, they remain on the list. A perfect example is the grizzly bear. The original goals when grizzly bears were listed back in 1975 was a target of 500 bears.
▶ 1:31:12Sen. Lummis: Today we have over 1,100 grizzly bears, and the frustration of wyoming ranchers and individuals is heightened. Every year people are killed by grizzly bears in my state, every year. Because they don't fear humans. So my office gets videos of grizzlies chasing ranchers while they're working their cattle.
▶ 1:31:43Sen. Lummis: So I have a bill. It's s315. The grizzly bear state management act to ensure state expertise drives species management moving forward and I still think for grizzly bears that that's the appropriate approach.
▶ 1:31:59Sen. Lummis: Then I want to pitch another bill that I have and it's so simple, it just changes the name of the endangered species act to the endangered species recovery act because our focus should be on recovery, not on listing, on recovery. And another issue that's always vexed me over the years with regard to the e.s.a.
▶ 1:32:23Sen. Lummis: Is that certain science was viewed as paramount and science that was generated at the state level wa- generated at the state level wad generated at the state level wae generated at the state level wa. So that's where I want to take my first questions. I want to pose these to Mr. riley and Mr. yablonski. Welcome, gentlemen. Do you believe all the best available science should be included in e.s.a.
▶ 1:32:53Sen. Lummis: Listings and delisting decisions and do you think that's currently being done? >> I think in general there is an appreciation to take into consideration what science is there. But I am going to give a very specific example.
▶ 1:33:14Sen. Lummis: My understanding is that this issue in nebraska, there is a power district near columbus, nebraska, that recently had to go through a biological opinion and had an order issued in the last decade or so. And there was science that the applicant had put together that clearly showed there was a concern about river temperatures in the platt river.
▶ 1:33:37Sen. Lummis: Clearly showed that there was no statistically different temperature downstream so that there wouldn't be a challenge to that. Now the service in the end disregarded that data, that local science that was conducted, and decided that there should be a temperature differential and what this did was give the fish and wildlife service -- this is my opinion as a former director of the state water management program -- give
▶ 1:34:09Sen. Lummis: Them their own water right to decide who and what got water. Now, that was a mistake. The first time that this rule was implemented because temperatures downstream were too high, this owner of the system was not able to divert water. Water went downstream that was supposed to make everything better. In reality it killed many, many fish because the temperature changed the wrong way.
▶ 1:34:37Sen. Lummis: So the study was already done by the applicant to show that that would be the case, but it was disregarded in the final biological opinion and the rule that was set up. Sen. lummis chn was the final opinion written by employees in the fish and wildlife service?
▶ 1:34:58Mr. Riley: That's my understanding, yes.
▶ 1:35:01Mr. Yablonski: To the credit of the agency, sometimes they get the science completely right. In the case of the grizzly bear the science is spot-on and prior to delistings of the grizzly bear, the yellowstone in particular, those have really been sort of bipartisan science based delistings. You have had both administrations from both sides of the aisle moving that forward, but what happens is there is a distinction between biological recovery and political recovery.
▶ 1:35:28Mr. Yablonski: Biological recovery is when the science says it should come off the list which is in the case of the grizzly bear today. Political recovery is when special interest groups deem it acceptable to come off the list and we haven't gotten there yet. Oftentimes the agency will move forward with the states with the science based decision, but then you have a judge replacing his or her own opinions with the actual science that the agencies concur on.
▶ 1:35:53Sen. Lummis: Great point. I wonder if it would be advisable once the science is set on a recovery goal that as soon as that recovery goal is hit and then maintained for a period of a few years that a species would automatically either drop from endangered to threatened or drop off the list
▶ 1:36:24Sen. Lummis: Entirely just as a ministerial function. Mr. li, what do you think of that idea?
▶ 1:36:29Mr. Li: So I think the rule making process that's currently in place is still necessary, in particular to give states and the public an opportunity to comment, because a lot of times the service gets the analysis right and sometimes it needs additional data from states and from others. So the rule making process is actually what allows members of the public to provide additional information to the service may not have. So I think it's really important to retain that rule making process.
▶ 1:37:00Sen. Lummis: Mr. chairman, would you indulge me? Thank you. So what are the highest priority changes that could be made to improve the credibility of the act and I pose that to anyone who wishes to take it on. Yes, sir.
▶ 1:37:23Mr. Yablonski: Thank you, senator. I go back to something defenders probably agree on and you had mentioned this in your comments. Can we structure sort of metrics where as the states and landowners meet thoars metrics, flex ilt and management slides more and more in their direction so that eventually as all the metrics are met because recovery is the goal of the act, like that's -- it's not funding. It's not staffing.
▶ 1:37:54Mr. Yablonski: It's not ideological. It's recovery. That's what we should look at. Administerings come and go. Budgets go up and budgets go down but the recovery number has been stuck for an awful long time. We have to change the incentives. We can't be doing the same thing we have been doing for 53 years.
▶ 1:38:13Mr. Yablonski: I think taking the 4d rule that would manage species and having clear goals for states to meet and as the states meet those goals, more management shifts to them and at the end of the day to your point, it would be delisted. Because you would get there. You would hit all the check marks and be there over a period of time.
▶ 1:38:32Sen. Lummis: Thank you. Mr. riley, any comment on this?
▶ 1:38:36Mr. Riley: Senator lummis, I appreciate your comment on maybe changing the act's name. One of the successes for the platt river recovery and implementation program is that it's that, it's not a restoration program. We are not trying to restore. We are trying to recover. We have seen great work in that direction through the collaboration and interest of stakeholders and the federal government and other folks involved, including n.g.o.'s.
▶ 1:39:09Mr. Riley: So I think focusing on that is really important. When you get to that level and achieve it, your comments on check mark, let's make it a maintenance program. This is exactly where prip is very close, the platt river program.
▶ 1:39:26Mr. Riley: For your state who participates in it, I think some of your stakeholders would agree that we are very close and we need to know that the goal line is not going to change on the program, that once we achieve that, we are there and we can maintain it and do the work that it takes to maintain the program and not change it.
▶ 1:39:48Sen. Lummis: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for bringing your expertise to bear today. Thank you.
▶ 1:40:00Chair Ricketts: On that last question, did you have any comments about the credibility?
▶ 1:40:04Mr. Li: I will just say this very briefly. I think about the next 10, 20 years of the endangered species act and what types of issues may come up in hearings like this and I think about how to get ahead of some of the challenges. I expect that we are going to need to really invest in how to get infrastructure development and endangered species conservation right. I think about all of the energy, the transmission lines, the highway projects, the housing development that will happen over the next one to two decades.
▶ 1:40:33Mr. Li: There will be tension with recovering endangered species. So I think if we can really invest now in figuring out how to get mitigation right, how to for example conservation banks, right, where we can have actually private companies invest in the recovery of endangered species as a way to offset unavoidable impacts from energy development.
▶ 1:40:54Mr. Li: I think that's one of the low conflict ways that congress can actually help the service help the american public get infrastructure done faster and better. So there's a number of ideas around endangered species act authorization in mitigation that I think really would help hoer -- lower the temperature over the next decade.
▶ 1:41:16Chair Ricketts: Great. Thank you very much, Mr. li. All right. With that no further questions. I would like to thank our witnesses and all my colleagues for participating in today's hearing. Senators who wish to submit written questions for the record have until 5:00 pl on wednesday, april 1 to do so. The witnesses' responses to those questions are due back to the committee no later than 5:00 p.m. On april 15 and will be submitted for the record. With that this hearing is adjourned.
▶ 1:41:45Chair Ricketts: [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]