"The congressman who said he 'would love to invalidate' the Endangered Species Act is closing in on his goal.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) recently shepherded five bills out of the Natural Resources Committee he chairs that would dismantle the law piece by piece. Many Republicans on the panel say the proposals are necessary changes that would modernize the 1973 law. Democrats and conservationists say the bills would whittle away the law’s ability to save wildlife from extinction.

One measure would force the federal government to consider the economic impact of saving a species rather than make a purely scientific call. Another would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the act along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to defer to data collected by states as the 'best scientific and commercial data available,' although state funding related to the act accounts for a small fraction of that supported by the federal government."

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post November 5, 2017. [2]