This week’s Earth Minute segment from GJEP executive director Anne Petermann centers on pending legislative action that will remove protective power from the Endangered Species Act.

TRANSCRIPT:

Last week, House Republicans announced a series of bills aimed at gutting the Endangered Species Act, that would make it almost impossible for imperiled species to gain protection.

The bill would give states veto power over Endangered Species Act decisions and put them in charge of recovery efforts regardless of a lack the funding or regulatory structure to ensure species’ survival.

“Lawmakers are turning their back on the most vulnerable species in the country just to please polluters and other powerful interests, said the Center for Biological Diversity. These bills will absolutely push wildlife over the edge and into extinction.”

More than 300 legislative attacks have been launched against the Endangered Species Act since 2011, when Republicans took over the House.

The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1973, and in 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act, stating, “the plain intent of Congress in enacting” the ESA “was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.”

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann, from Global Justice Ecology Project.