The House's top Democratic appropriator is hopeful he can strip language from an Interior Department spending bill that would temporarily bar the department from listing any new species under the Endangered Species Act.

An amendment by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) was one of seven discussed last night during floor debate of the fiscal 2012 Interior and Environment appropriations bill. Votes were postponed until this afternoon.

Dicks spokesman George Behan said his boss was still trying to shore up support this morning for his amendment to preserve the Endangered Species Act among conservative Democrats and Republicans. Pennsylvania Republican Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick and Charlie Dent are already set to support it.

"It's within range," Behan said. "I mean, we'll see what happens, but of all the amendments to this bill that were proposed, this one actually has a decent chance."

The bill would prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from listing any new species under the act or from increasing protections for already listed species. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the subcommittee that wrote the bill, said the rider was intended to encourage stakeholders to push for a reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act.

"It's a shot across the bow," he said earlier this week.

Simpson has argued that relatively few listed species have ever been determined to have recovered, so development and use of their habitat continue to be restricted.

But Dicks calls the provision "the extinction rider," arguing that it would prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from offering needed protections to species that are about to disappear. In remarks on the floor last night, Dicks said that species recovery takes time, and therefore the act should not be judged based on the number of species that have been delisted.

"It is naive to think that a quick turnaround is easy when it took decades if not centuries for a species to decline," he said.