The House Natural Resources Committee is set to discuss legislation to make big changes to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Advocates say it could be the death knell for dozens of species.
The discussion draft, obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News, is still in the early stages and could undergo significant changes before it is ever voted on.
Nevertheless, the committee will huddle in the coming weeks to consider it, a step toward action sooner rather than later. That action is alarming advocates who warn it would gut the 1972 law.
“This punches so many holes in the lifeboat of the MMPA that it might as well be titled ‘The MMPA Evisceration Act,’” said Jane Davenport, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, who said it would return the U.S. to the “dark days when so many of our marine mammals were really, really in bad shape.”
