A push to strip the Endangered Species Act pits survival against economic interests. More than 50 Pacific Northwest species are at risk
Wrong direction: Shortnose suckers are an imperiled species found in the Klamath Basin, and nowhere else in the world. Since 2001, the abundance of the species has decreased by nearly 85%. Habitat degradation is the primary cause. Photo: Jason Ching/UW
By Kendra Chamberlain. April 2, 2025. United States House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) has introduced legislation that would gut the Endangered Species Act.
Westerman’s bill, called the ESA Amendments Act of 2025, would require an economic impact analysis to be part of any endangered species listing decision.
That would spell trouble for the future listing of any imperiled species in the Pacific Northwest, whose recovery needs are often at odds with existing industry (such as hydropower generation) and coming development.
The bill would also alter how the federal government’s different departments consult with one another to ensure actions taken by one department aren’t negatively impacting recovery efforts. If approved, changes to that process would ease energy-project approvals on public lands that mioght harm important habitats for threatened or endangered species.
The bill would shift some conservation management from the federal government to states and landowners, while easing some permitting processes.
It would also slow down the process for listing a species, and speed up the process for delisting a species.
The bill is the latest in a wave of legislation introduced in Congress with the aim of altering how conservation and industry interests are balanced in endangered species listing decisions.
A similar bill, proposed by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wa.) and co-sponsored by Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) was introduced in 2024.
Pacific Northwest Dems will negotiate
Fifty-nine species are listed as threatened or endangered in the Pacific Northwest. Some, like gray wolves and the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, are on the road to recovery; for other listed species, like the shortnose sucker fish or South Selkirk caribou—the only caribou population to ever roam the contiguous United States—any type of recovery at this point feels out of reach.
Westerman claimed in a statement that the Environmental Species Act has “consistently failed to achieve its intended goals and has been warped by decades of radical environmental litigation into a weapon instead of a tool.”
The Environmental Species Act, which received strong bipartisan support at the time it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973, is considered one of the strongest conservation laws in the world.
But success is an elusive metric for the law.
A 2019 study found the law has had a 99% success rate in preventing the extinction of animals and plants that are listed.
But preventing extinction isn’t the same thing as fully recovering. Critics of the ESA often point out that only a small percentage of listed animals, somewhere between 1-3%, have recovered enough to be delisted.
Critics of Westerman’s new bill say the changes it proposes would have disastrous ramifications for imperiled species.
“The Endangered Species Act is the backstop for our nation’s wildlife already at the brink of extinction and this bill would sanction their swift descent into nothingness,” said Ellen Richmond, senior attorney for national conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement.
Still, some Pacific Northwest Democrats have signaled they’d be interested in negotiating support for the bill.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told E&E News that he’d be open to talks with Westerman if it could result in advances in clean-energy permitting.
“I’ve always felt that expediting permitting is key and that it can be done without throwing the environmental laws in the garbage can,” said Wyden.
The bill will have to make it out of the House Natural Resources Committee before being voted on by the House of Representatives.
Thanks for another informative article.
Speaking to the choir here, but if economic interests are “balanced” against species protection, species will never be protected as it is the economic engine that is imperiling these species in the first place in the vast majority of cases through habitat loss. Failure to recover species is not the fault of the ESA or the USFWS but the chronic under-funding of recovery efforts. Two PNW species the bald-eagle and golden paintbrush have been successfully de-listed or at least down listed, thanks to energetic and collaborative efforts by many agencies and landowners. Populations of salmon are recovering in both the Clackamas and Sandy Rivers.
Survival and recovery protect and grow economic interests. In the Pacific Northwest, the sportfishing industry generates $5 Billion in economic output, employing 37,000 in service of over 2 million anglers. Salmon and steelhead are the lifeblood of NW sportfishing. Protecting them protects a cultural birthright and economic engine.