Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks on grizzly bear management.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), called for restoring Wyoming’s authority to manage its own grizzly bear population during his remarks today on the Senate floor. Barrasso highlighted legislation he recently cosponsored to remove grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from the Endangered Species List and shift management of the bear to the states.
Sen. Barrasso’s remarks:
“Under the Constitution, most decisions affecting our lives are meant to be made at the local or the state level. But for decades, unelected, unaccountable, heavy-handed federal bureaucrats have taken away decisions from the states. They’ve centralized power and ignored the local experts. We need to put the power back into the hands of the people and the states. That’s where it belongs. That’s what our founding fathers envisioned.
“And the perfect example of this is the status of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park.
“The Yellowstone population of grizzly bears has been fully recovered – put on the endangered species list years and years ago – but has been fully recovered for more than 20 years. In Wyoming, we’ve invested more than $50 million in this effort to make sure that the grizzly bears did fully and safely recover. Both Democrat administrations and Republican administrations have moved to take an action to take the grizzly bear off of the Endangered Species List.
“Wyoming has a strong proven track record of science-based management of the bears.
“Today, grizzly bears in Yellowstone are thriving. They’re thriving so much that they’re now doing great damage to our livestock and to our wildlife. In 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that there was ‘substantial scientific or commercial information to warrant local control.’ Not the heavy hand of Washington, but local control. Yet the grizzly bear remains under Washington’s control, and that is despite the best data and our state’s success.
“This issue isn’t science, it’s politics. There are partisan liberal judges who refuse to listen to scientific evidence. The evidence shows that the grizzlies are fully recovered. The previous administration didn’t want to give up control. That’s kind of how the Biden administration did it. So on its way out the door, the final weeks, it threw sand in the gears of change. The Biden administration rejected at the midnight hour, Wyoming’s good faith efforts and management plans – they did it just before leaving office.
“The decision was wrong. It was wrong for the grizzly bear population, and it was wrong for the people of Wyoming.
“It’s time for Wyoming – not Washington – to be in charge of managing the grizzly bears.
“In Congress, Senator Cynthia Lummis and Congresswoman Harriet Hageman and I introduced legislation to delist the grizzly bears. Our legislation would restore state management. It would put power back into the hands of the people who understand the situation the best.
“We’re also working with the Trump administration to take immediate action. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is a supporter of delisting the grizzly bears. He agrees that local communities and states should be in control of these decisions. As he said in his confirmation hearing, there’s a belief that when they come off of federal protection, they’re unprotected. No, he said, they’re managed – as are all of the other species in the state – by the locals who’ve got the closest data. Secretary Burgum is right, and I’m glad that we finally have an administration that is ready to work with the people of Wyoming.
“I’m going to continue to work closely with the Secretary of Interior on a path forward that allows the people of Wyoming to make decisions for Wyoming.”
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