There has been a lot of talk about Project 2025 in the news. It is the creation of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and includes 900 pages of policy.

‍The Project 2025 Document sets out four main policy aims: restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation's sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely. ¹

The official republican platform is consistent with many parts of Project 2025, although the think tank version goes further and is more detailed.  If you think that Project 2025 will never happen. Think again. The Trust the Science Act HR 764 and Appropriations Act HR 8998 read like a Project 2025 primer when it comes to wolves and wildlife.  Elect to protect wolves, they need your vote.

This latest onslaught against wolves began with Trust the Science Act  HR 764 sponsored by Colorado Representative Lauren Bobert.  Ms. Bobert believes the gray wolf is fully recovered and should be delisted in the lower 48 states. Her bill is supported by national interest groups advocating for hunting rights and guns including the National Rifle Association (NRA) Safari Club International (SCI), BigGame Forever, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, and Hunter Nation. ²

HR 764 passed the House Representatives with a 209-204 vote on April 30, 2024. The bill will reinstate a Trump-era rule that permanently delists the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the lower 48 states, bypassing the authority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). It prevents any further judicial review of the animal’s status, giving individual states full authority over wolf management.³ The bill moves onto the Senate, where if passed HR 764 will be forwarded to the President for signature.

Not content, the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act HR 8998 includes a rider (sec. 130) to delist gray wolves:‍

SEC. 130. Not later than 60 days after the date of 13 enactment of this section, the Secretary of the Interior 14 shall reissue the final rule titled ‘‘Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Removing the Gray Wolf (Canis 16 lupus) From the List of Endangered and Threatened 17 Wildlife’’ (85 Fed. Reg. 69778 (November 3, 2020)).

‍The bill also slashes funding for the Department of Interior by 74%, delists the Greater Yellowstone population of grizzly bears, blocks funding to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades ecosystem in Washington and the Bitterroot ecosystem in Idaho and Montana, and blocks any restriction on hunting fishing or shooting on federal lands.⁴  In a last-minute flurry before recess, the House narrowly passed HR 8998 at 9:49 pm Eastern Standard Time.  The vote was 210-205 largely along partisan lines. Five republicans voted it down while one democrat voted against his party.  Interestingly, 11 democrats and 6 republicans did not vote. If all had voted along party lines, the vote would have been deadlocked.

This leads us to Project 2025, where it all started? Or where it ends? Read for yourself the disdain the Heritage Foundation has for the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and wildlife including grizzly bears and gray wolves.  Excerpts from pages 533-534 of the Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise 2025:

‍The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the species. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”

Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them.

‍Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private property, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations.  

In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action: Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.  Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA. ⁵

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‍Keep in mind that Governmental policy changes were necessary to rescue gray wolves from the brink of extinction. Anti-wolf legislation threatens to undermine years of conservation efforts. Scientists like John Vucetich, wolf expert and Michigan Technological University Professor, believe there is no scientific evidence that proves wolves occupy enough of their former range to be considered recovered.⁶

Legislation like the Trust the Science Act HR 764, Appropriations Act HR 8998, and Project 2025 are all anything, but trusting the science. ^‍

The 06 Legacy is here to help.  We maintain a database of over 500 elected officials who have demonstrated commitment to protecting wolves.  Elect to protect wolves. Their lives depend on it.