“Tester’s wolf rider is bad policy”

This pretty much says it all about the  “wolf delisting rider” placed in the Senate budget bill by Senator Tester.

By MICHAEL GARRITY Your Turn

Posted: Sunday, March 13, 2011 12:00 am

During his 2006 campaign against then-Sen. Conrad Burns, candidate Jon Tester made many promises. Among them, Tester promised he wouldn’t use “riders,” which are amendments tacked on to unrelated bills, to legislate environmental issues.

Only two months ago, Tester broke that promise when he added a rider to the Omnibus Spending Bill in December to remove wolves from the Endangered Species List. That bill died, but now Tester has slipped another wolf rider on the Senate’s latest Continuing Funding Resolution. Not only does his move set a very dangerous precedent that may well destroy the Endangered Species Act, it also violates the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Tester faces a tough 2012 re-election challenge from U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg and one of the issues both candidates have focused on is last summer’s federal court ruling that put gray wolves back on the Endangered Species List. The wolves had been delisted in Montana and Idaho by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 and both states subsequently held hunts that indiscriminately killed hundreds of wolves. Wyoming, which is part of the regional wolf recovery area, does not have a federally-approved wolf management plan and the judge ruled that wolves cannot be selectively delisted for the states of Montana and Idaho.

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Photo: Courtesy of fanpop

Posted in: Wolf Wars

Tags: Wolf Slaughter rider, 1709, No wolves in budget, Senate