Here is the latest information on the status of anti-wolf legislation in the Wyoming legislature.
It looks like much of it will become state law. We will see if the USFWS will approve it. I have great faith in the professionalism of those who actully run the federal wolf recovery project, but we all know what kind of people Bush has installed at the top of the Services, Bureaus, Agencies and Departments.
This info is from the Wyoming Conservation Network. Action is pretty much limited to Wyoming residents. I'm doubtful a phone call from someone from Oregon would sway them.
Ralph Maughan
February 25, 2003
WEEKLY UPDATE ON THE WYOMING LEGISLATURE
(for daily updates, visit Wyoming Conservation Voters at www.wyovoters.org
FREUDENTHAL BACKS SUE-THE-FEDS BILL: HB 300 Status: Senate, Awaiting Committee of the Whole Action.
House Bill 300 (Rep. Pat Childers, HD 50/R-Cody, sponsor) would strengthen the state's federal natural resource policy office, diverting $250,000 from the General Fund to hire a team of lawyers to sue the U.S. government on behalf of the state or even private citizens. Previously, the office could only intervene in litigation filed by others. The bill also enlarges state government's role in developing federal agencies' environmental impact statements.
Backers of the bill got a boost Feb. 25 when gubernatorial federal resource policy aide Jody Levin told Senate Agriculture Committee members that Gov. Dave Freudenthal supports the bill. The governor has made it clear he will vigorously pursue federal funding for endangered-species management, and sees litigation as one approach. The committee sent HB 300 to the full Senate, where it will be considered in the next few days.
HB 300 could actually set back delisting of the gray wolf, by sending a message to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the state would prefer suing to remove wolves and has no deep commitment to protecting the species. HB 300 also includes a demand the federal government reimburse the state for loss of income or loss of tax base incurred due to federal land use policies -- something the Legislature, no matter how well intended, is not in a position to require.
Appropriators reduced the extravagant initial request of $3 million down to $250,000. Other amendments softened the language of the bill somewhat. HB 300 passed the House on a lopsided 52-7 vote Feb. 12 (vote record). It now awaits Senate action.
Please contact your senator and urge a "no" vote on HB 300.
WOLF'S FUTURE RIDES ON LEGISLATIVE ACTION: HB 229
Status: Senate, Awaiting Second Reading Feb. 26
HB 229 (Rep. Mike Baker, HD 28/R-Thermopolis, sponsor) would classify the gray wolf as trophy game in national forest wilderness areas adjoining Yellowstone Park, and as a predator in the rest of the state once federal authorities end the wolf's Endangered Species Act protections and populations exceed seven packs outside the park.
HB 229 has been crafted to meet the barest threshold of federal approval. Gov. Dave Freudenthal has also made it clear he is planning to sign the bill, which would trigger a Game and Fish Department rulemaking process that will no doubt also be heavily lobbied by anti-wolf interests. While wolves killed under the future predator status would have to be reported, the bill contains no legal penalty for failing to do so. House Travel Committee members did not consider a Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) amendment proposal to make failure to report a low misdemeanor.
The committee also vastly reduced the area of the state within which wolves would be classified as trophy game and managed through hunting by the WGFD. While the original bill granted such status in all the wilderness areas of the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton national forests, the panel stripped out four wildernesses that do not adjoin Yellowstone or Grand Teton parks.
The bill also contains a kind of "escape clause" allowing the state to back out in case its legal challenges against wolf reintroduction succeed.
This the only piece of legislation this session to deal with the wolf's legal status. Please call your senator today and urge him or her to support trophy game status statewide for the gray wolf, to oppose predator status and to support criminal penalties for failure to report killing a wolf.
125,000 SOUGHT FOR WASTEFUL PREDATOR CONTROL: HB 9
Status: Senate, Awaiting Third Reading Feb. 26
Wyoming's Animal Damage Management Board (ADMB) wants to remove a Dec. 31, 2004 "sunset" date for the predator-killing agency, and to obtain a one-time $125,000 appropriation from the state General Fund to expand its activities.
The bill appears poised to pass the Senate but with a new sunset date of 2009 being considered. The Senate took the previous 2004 sunset off the agency during first reading debate Feb. 24.
The ADMB was created in 1999 as a pilot program to kill predators, to study new methods of predator control, to promote the concept of predator control and to convince sportsmen that predator control increases game populations. The board was granted $125,000 in (supposedly) one-time funding. HB 9, sponsored by the Joint Interim Agriculture Committee, would remove the sunset and provide another "one-time" appropriation of $125,000.
The ADMB coyote control programs are both financially wasteful and scientifically counterproductive. Killing coyotes can increase coyote breeding, kill non-targeted species, and fundamentally alter predator/prey relationships.
ADMB programs already receive $100,000 from the cash-strapped Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and well over 30 percent of the agency's work goes toward the unpromising coyote "control" effort. Meanwhile, planned private-sector contributions have been nearly nonexistent.
Please contact your senator to ask him or her to oppose HB 9, or at least support amendments to retain the board's sunset and curb its funding.WYO WOULD SUPERSEDE U.S. WILDLIFE PROTECTION: SF 97
Status: House, Awaiting Committee of the Whole Action
SF 97 (Sen. Delaine Roberts, SD16/R-Etna, sponsor) aims to assert the state's "exclusive jurisdiction over wildlife" based on untested principles of constitutional law.
The bill is aimed, in the sponsor's words, to provoke a lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court to test whether the state has exclusive control of wildlife management in the state outside of Yellowstone Park. One prominent outfitter supporting the bill noted that there would be no "threatened" or "endangered" species in Wyoming if this bill accomplished its goal, unless the state Game and Fish Commission decided to designate them. Obviously this would enormously set back endangered species recovery efforts in the state.
SF 97 directs the attorney general to draw up a plan for a major lawsuit to end any federal wildlife management programs here in the state. Major revisions to the bill by the House Travel Committee on Monday do not solve the fundamental problem -- the bill's profoundly anti-wolf tone.
Please contact your representative and urge him or her to oppose this extreme measure.Regarding HB 229. There is not a single wolf pack that lives entirely inside these national forest wilderness areas adjacent to Yellowstone. All of them, including 2 Yellowstone Park wolf packs leave their protection and exist in the "wolf-is-a-predator" zone part of the time. That includes Molly's Pack and the Nez Perce Pack, both regarding as central Yellowstone Packs. If packs from central Yellowstone will not be safe how can any be?
If successful in federal count (very doubtful that it will be) SF 97 would provoke a radical alteration of U.S. constitutional law including many non-wildlife issues and numerous treaties. If enough Bush nominees get on the courts, this could eventually happen. So keep filibustering Democrats!! One of the reasons they are filibustering is the suspicion the Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada is a radical "state's rights" advocate.
RM
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