Failure of the Endangered Species Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MANN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington very much for his leadership with the Western Caucus and for hosting this Special Order tonight.

Madam Speaker, I rise today, with my colleagues from the Western Caucus, to highlight progress made in the lesser prairie chicken population recovery through voluntary conservation efforts in Kansas.

The lesser prairie chicken is a North American species native to the grasslands and southern Great Plains across New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. These birds use the open areas of the plains to perform their courtship dance and build their nests on the ground, away from any roads or structures.

My district, the Big First of Kansas, is home to the most extensive range and largest population of the lesser prairie-chicken.

Since the 1990s, there have been concerns regarding the lesser prairie-chicken population size and habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has considered listing the bird under the Endangered Species Act on multiple occasions.

The Fish and Wildlife Service cited habitat fragmentation as one of the reasons for its population decline, as much of the area is used for cropland, grazing, and oil and gas development. However, we have seen perhaps the most significant population changes tied to the prolonged periods of drought across the chicken's range.

At its lowest, the lesser prairie-chicken population fell to approximately 15,400 birds during the worst phase of the 2013 drought.

As the population declined, stakeholders across the five states began conversations and plans to address this issue and partnered with local landowners and industry. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism teamed up with farmers and ranchers, the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Interstate Working Group, and other midwestern States throughout the bird's range to initiate conservation plans.

In their work to help the lesser prairie-chicken, Kansans have conserved more than 40,000 acres of habitat through the Conservation Reserve Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private investments. Many of the voluntary conservation efforts have been directly funded by farmers and ranchers, the energy sector, and other landowners. As stakeholders make conservation changes, it is vital that the practices are mutually beneficial to both the lesser prairie- chicken and agriculture and energy producers.

These voluntary efforts have yielded excellent results, with the lesser prairie-chicken population up to more than 34,400 birds in 2020. In Kansas, the population has been stable to increasing since 2013, while the entire population has been increasing since 2016. The population growth has occurred thanks to voluntary efforts, but also because of increased rainfall, which has also benefited many of the agricultural producers in the area.

And so it is especially alarming and disappointing to see the Fish and Wildlife Service release a plan to list the lesser prairie-chicken under the Endangered Species Act as threatened in the northern population and endangered in the southern population.

The potential ESA listing flies in the face of years spent and millions invested in voluntary conservation and goes against the clear data that the population has increased under those efforts. As usual, President Biden believes Federal overreach is the answer to a local and State issue, and his administration lacks trust in private landowners to take care of their own land.

I strongly and vehemently oppose the listing of the lesser prairie- chicken, and I will continue to push back on the Biden administration's egregious overreach.

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