Press Releases

Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed to list the yellow-billed cuckoo as a threatened species and to designate 546,335 acres of land as protected critical habitat despite a continued lack of transparency from the FWS on its justifications:

“This most recent overreach by the FWS is a blatant abuse of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and demonstrates once again that the FWS is no friend to the Arizona taxpayer.

“My home state of Arizona continues to be assaulted by government bureaucrats who use ambiguous laws and executive orders to seize more land and tie up our precious resources. Our citizens continue to lose out on essential economic growth and tax revenues because of these ridiculous land designations that are proven to be overreaching and not based on scientific facts.

“In my previous committee hearings with the FWS I can attest firsthand of its horrendous track record of decision making. The complete disregard by the FWS of the negative economic impact of its policies on local businesses and property owners must end. Even worse, this latest designation comes with NO public hearings and the FWS cites an outdated 2007 study on climate change as basis for its habitat designation. It is clear that the FWS, with its extreme environmentalist agenda, has no concern for the consequences of its misguided polices and will take whatever action is necessary to bypass the will of the American people.”

Background

Congressman Gosar joined 17 other members of Congress in sending a letter to FWS Director Dan Ashe opposing the habitat designation for the yellow-billed cuckoo and asked for public hearings to be held in order to better address the concerns of affected citizens. That letter can be found HERE.

In mid August of this year, the FWS proposed to designate 546,335 acres, including over 242,000 acres of private property as critical habitat in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The public comment period closes on October 14, 2014.  The habitat proposal would affect portions of 80 rivers and streams in 9 western states. 

The proposed designation by the FWS acknowledges that protected habitat would include areas where the cuckoo doesn’t currently exist and FWS cites climate change as a factor for its decisions citing a highly controversial 2007 IPCC study as its basis.

This proposed critical habitat designation would potentially affect agriculture, irrigation, grazing, mining, forest management and construction in western states. In Arizona, the designation would greatly affect the Salt River Project which provides water and electricity for millions of customers in central Arizona.

###