People Power United joins coalition efforts to protect the longfin smelt
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People Power United joined coalition efforts to protect the longfin smelt. Shout out to EarthJustice Action for leading this effort. Below is the letter we submitted on behalf of our People Power United membership.
April 30, 2025
Dear Member of Congress:
On behalf of the 47 below organizations and our millions of members and supporters, we write to express our strong opposition to H.J. Res. 78 and to urge you to VOTE NO when it is considered on the House floor this week. This legislation would weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by rescinding ESA protections for the San Francisco Bay-Delta longfin smelt and set a dangerous precedent to expand the scope of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) beyond its original intent by repealing a rule that was finalized and received by Congress outside of the CRA “lookback period” in contravention of the clear statutory language of the CRA.
Longfin smelt are a small but important species of fish that inhabits estuaries along the Pacific Coast. Scientists first identified the San Francisco Bay-Delta distinct population segment of longfin smelt as a species that warranted endangered species act protection in 1992. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally listed Bay-Delta longfin smelt in July 2024, finding that there is a 50-80% chance that the species will go extinct under current conditions. Rescinding ESA protections for this species and preventing a future agency decision that is “substantially the same,” as H.J. Res. 78 proposes, would dramatically undermine recovery of the Bay-Delta longfin smelt and harm the communities that depend on the Bay Delta ecosystem. While some have claimed that environmental protections under laws like the ESA are to blame for deadly wildfires, the truth is that endangered species protections actually safeguard our shared water resources and that the recent fires in Los Angeles were the result of drought and winds, exacerbated by climate change, and spread by home-to-home ignition. Passage of this resolution would directly undermine the recovery of the Bay-Delta longfin smelt and the intent of the ESA to ensure that decisions about how to manage imperiled species are made based on the best available science, not politics.
Approval of H.J. Res. 78 would also vastly expand the reach of the CRA and open a “Pandora’s box” for future misuse, expansion, and abuse of its provisions. In order for Congress to use the CRA’s special set of parliamentary procedures to undo a rule, the rule must meet explicitly defined criteria in the CRA statute. Those criteria include strict timelines for when Congress must act to review a rule. Once those time periods expire, the CRA cannot be used to bypass the filibuster to repeal a rule. The rule listing Bay Delta longfin smelt under the Endangered Species Act was issued on July 30, 2024, and officially received by the House on August 9, 2024 and the Senate on August 15, 2024. All three dates fall before the August 16, 2024 date that marks the start of the “lookback period” when rules that are submitted with fewer than 60 days left in a legislative session must receive a new 60 day period of review in the following session of Congress. As a result, Congress cannot use the CRA to overturn these protections in the 119th Congress.
Like efforts to repeal certain Clean Air Act waivers that the Government Accountability Office has officially determined are not rules under the CRA, this attempt to rescind the Bay-Delta longfin smelt listing is an attempt to flout the plain language of the CRA and expand its reach. This procedural sleight of hand would begin the window for expedited consideration of a CRA resolution not upon the date that a rule is “received” by each chamber, as is required by the statute, but upon the “referral” of said rule to the committee of jurisdiction. If H.J. Res. 78 is approved, the same logic could be abused by future congressional majorities to intentionally delay the referral of a rule to a committee – and thus artificially alter the deadline for consideration of a CRA resolution of disapproval – until an ideal political moment opens to repeal that rule. Establishing that precedent in direct contravention of the statute would create a level of regulatory uncertainty that Congress sought to prevent by including clear timelines for the repeal of rules in the text of the CRA. Congress must adhere to the rules it put into law when it passed the CRA, not bend them to fit political whims.
For the foregoing reasons, we urge you to VOTE NO on H.J. Res. 78 when it comes to the floor this week.
Sincerely
Alameda Creek Alliance
American Bird Conservancy
American Rivers Action Fund
Animal Welfare Institute
Bayou City Waterkeeper
Californians for Western Wilderness
Clean Water Action
Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power and Light
Earthjustice Action
EcoFlight
Endangered Habitats League
Endangered Species Coalition
Environmental Protection Information Center- EPIC
FOUR PAWS USA
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the River
GreenLatinos
Inland Ocean Coalition
International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute
Kettle Range Conservation Group
League of Conservation Voters
Legal Rights for the Salish Sea
Natural Resources Defense Council
Next 100 Coalition
NH Audubon
Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association
NYC Plover Project
Ocean Conservation Research
Oceana
Partnership for Policy Integrity
People Power United
Prairie Hills Audubon Society [of Western SD]
Predator Defense
Public Citizen
Resource Renewal Institute
Save Our wild Salmon Coalition
Sierra Club
Species Unite
Sustainable Ocean Alliance
Together for Brothers
Virginia Citizens Consumer Council
Western Nebraska Resources Council
Western Watersheds Project
Wilderness Watch
Wildlife for All
Wyoming Untrapped
198 methods
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