WYOMING — Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney reintroduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would direct the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to remove the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears from the Federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife.
In a decades-long debate, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears has been taken on and off the endangered species list.
“I was proud to work on this legislation for years with Senator Enzi and will continue to fight for it in the House of Representatives while working with my colleagues to fight for Wyoming’s statutory right to manage our wildlife,” said Cheney.
In 2007, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) delisted grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. A federal judge reinstated protections in 2009 after finding that the USFWS did not adequately consider the impacts of the decline of whitebark pine nuts—a key food source component for grizzly bears.
In 2017, USFWS announced that grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have sufficiently recovered and will be returned to state management. In 2018, a U.S District Judge again ruled to put grizzly bears back on the endangered species list.
After reintroducing “The Grizzly Bear State Management Act,” Cheney said, “This legislation would return the management of the Grizzly to the state-level, where it belongs. The federal government or unelected judges and bureaucrats should not be in the business of telling us how to operate. The state and people of Wyoming know what’s best for Wyoming.”
“The bill would also stop the abuse of the court system by environmental extremists and safeguard the scientifically proven delisting determination so that politically-motivated conservations cannot take advantage of that process,” said Cheney.
This bill is a follow-up to a bill introduced in 2019 by retired Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi. Governor Mark Gordon signed House Joint Resolution 0001 in the Wyoming State Legislature, requesting congressional action to delist grizzly bears.
