Just days after Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg announced that he had drafted legislation that would remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List (.pdf), Montana’s Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester said they were introducing a similar bill.
On Tuesday, the senators said the legislation would remove gray wolves in Montana and Idaho from the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act and place them back under the states’ control.
The bill is supported by the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Montana Wildlife Federation and the Montana Farm Bureau. In a prepared statement, Baucus said:
“No one – especially the federal government – knows how to manage wolves in Montana better than Montanans … The debate has gone on long enough.”
A blog at the Natural Resources Defense Council, blasted the legislation and said the senators are trying to side step the judicial system.
I had hoped that Senators Baucus and Tester could be the adults in the room, helping to broker a real solution to the problem of wolf conservation in the Rockies. Instead, they are ignoring the science and trying an end-run around the judicial system.