As your constituent and a supporter of the Wildlife Conservation Society, I am writing to urge you to oppose H.R 1897, the ESA Amendments Act, which would roll back the important provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

For more than 50 years, the ESA has successfully worked to preserve our nation’s most vulnerable species. Bald eagles, American alligators, and gray wolves are just a handful of important species that owe their recoveries to this law, which still stand as guideposts for environmental laws for countries around the world.

H.R. 1897 would roll back key protections provided by the ESA. Under focused attack is language that requires decisions to be made using only the best available science and commercial data available. Republicans and Democrats included this language in the original law to ensure that the future of species were not caught up in partisan political disputes. H.R. 1897 would require the federal government to deem any information submitted by a state or local government as the best available science or data, even if the information in question is widely discredited or even demonstrably false. It slows protections for species already in crisis, replacing the current 12-month deadline for action to be taken on a listing decision with an extended process that would delay critically-needed protections for years. Taken together, the bill reduces enforceable habitat protection, limits mitigation, and weakens federal recovery authority, and significantly reduces the role of science-based recovery for species.

Should the House consider this legislation in the coming weeks, I urge you to oppose this perilous attack on science-based decision-making and to support the Endangered Species Act, which remains one of the most important laws for the protection and recovery of wildlife in the world.