House Republicans had big plans for Earth Day this year: They would pass a bill to narrow protections for endangered species that they had long seen as federal overreach.
It didn’t work out that way.
On Wednesday afternoon, Republican leaders suddenly canceled a vote on the measure after an initial procedural vote showed shaky support from party members. One Florida Republican, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, publicly aired concerns about the bill before the scheduled vote, writing on social media: “Don’t tread on my turtles. Protected means protected.” Her post contained an image of a yellow flag emblazoned with a turtle and the slogan “Don’t tread on me,” a phrase dating to the American Revolution that some conservatives have embraced in recent years.
The flip-flop on Wednesday was an embarrassing setback for Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. And it left uncertain the fate of the ESA Amendments Act, a sweeping bill that would limit protections for species whose populations are beginning to recover, among a slew of other changes.
It was not immediately clear whether party leaders would try to shore up support and reschedule a vote on the measure. Aides to the bill’s lead sponsor, Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, did not respond to requests for comment.
Conservationists had warned that the bill could speed extinctions and risk the recovery of numerous species, including piping plovers, black-footed ferrets and North Atlantic right whales. And they called the timing of the vote, on Earth Day, a cruel stunt.
“It’s a slap in the face to the American people and all the wildlife they love, and the ecosystems that support our lives,” Mary Beth Beetham, director of legislative affairs at Defenders of Wildlife, an advocacy group, said on Wednesday morning.
A few hours later, she was rejoicing.
“Now we can really celebrate Earth Day!” she said in a statement after the measure was pulled from the House floor. “The public defeat of the Westerman bill is a direct result of sustained constituent pressure. Congress is finally listening to the majority of Americans who support the Endangered Species Act, rather than centering politics and money in its policy decisions.”
Republican supporters countered that the Endangered Species Act needs a serious overhaul. They said the bill would make it easier to remove unnecessary protections from gray wolves, grizzly bears and other predators whose populations have rebounded in certain areas over the past several decades.
“Folks in my district have an incredible frustration regarding the gray wolf population because they have recovered,” said Representative Michelle Fischbach, Republican of Minnesota, during a hearing on the bill on Monday. She said that gray wolves had killed cattle as well as “family dogs tied up in the front yard.”
The planned vote was the latest recent effort by congressional Republicans to erode environmental protections.
Last week, the Senate voted to allow mining upstream from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of the country’s largest and most visited expanses of federally protected lakes and forests, sending that measure to President Trump to be signed into law. And the House approved three bills that would narrow the reach of the Clean Air Act, although their fate in the Senate remains uncertain.
At the center of the debate over the Endangered Species Act are two polarized views of the law. Democrats and conservation groups tend to celebrate it for preventing extinctions, noting that less than 1 percent of species protected under the act have been lost. But many Republicans criticize the law for recovering only a small number of species to the point of removing them from the list.
The bill that the House had aimed to pass Wednesday would make a number of changes to the law. It would require regulators to conduct economic and national security analyses when determining whether to list a species as endangered, while limiting their ability to consider future impacts, such as climate change.
It would also weaken requirements that the federal government limit harm to endangered species, reduce certain habitat protections and cap fees awarded to lawyers in endangered species litigation. And it would allow greater use of a high-level panel of federal officials known as the God Squad, which recently exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from measures to protect endangered whales.
The first Earth Day, in 1970, came in response to a series of environmental disasters. The pesticide DDT was devastating bird populations. A record-breaking oil spill had polluted the waters off Santa Barbara, Calif. In Cleveland, the Cuyahoga River had caught on fire.
For the initial commemoration, Congress effectively closed down so that lawmakers could attend events. More than 20 million Americans participated in rallies, lectures and protests across the country, including at more than 1,500 college campuses and 10,000 schools.
The public outcry galvanized the modern environmental movement. It also spurred Congress to create the Environmental Protection Agency and to enact three landmark environmental laws within three years: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and, finally, the Endangered Species Act.
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting from Washington.
Maxine Joselow covers climate change and the environment for The Times from Washington.
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