Our letter opposing an anti-environment, anti-wildlife appropriations bill

RE: Oppose H.R. 8998, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Dear Member of Congress,

Environment America is a policy and action group with one mission: to build a greener, healthier world. We urge you to oppose H.R. 8998, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025, when it comes up for a vote.

H.R. 8998 contains many provisions that would endanger wildlife and wild places, including the following:

• Blocks any restriction on offshore leasing (SEC. 149) that would protect the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale, North Pacific right whale, or Rice’s whale;
• Strips existing Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves (SEC. 130) and the Yellowstone population of grizzly bears (SEC. 157), without agency review of the science;
• Unravels needed Endangered Species Act protections for the lesser prairie chicken (SEC. 127), northern long-eared bat (SEC. 128), and the dunes sagebrush lizard (SEC. 129);
• Denies ESA protections for greater sage-grouse (SEC. 116);
  Blocks administrative rulemaking to protect old-growth forests in the National Forest System (SEC. 495);
• Blocks the use of funds to cancel oil and gas leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (SEC. 153);
• Prohibits funding to protect 13 million acres of land in the Western Arctic (NPR-A) via a recently finalized rule (SEC. 154);
• Mandates offshore oil and gas lease sales twice a year off the coast of Alaska in areas currently off limits to oil and gas development (SEC. 146);
• Shrinks the boundaries of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (SEC. 139);
• Threatens the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness by reversing a withdrawal of 225,000 acres of public land adjacent to America’s most visited wilderness area (SEC. 452);
• Reinstates two canceled mineral leases in the Superior National Forest, opening the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park (SEC. 453) to pollution from sulfide-ore copper mining;
• Blocks administrative (federal agency) withdrawal from occurring (SEC. 462), a tool used in the past to protect special and sacred places such as the Grand Canyon and the Boundary Waters;
• Cuts the EPA budget by 20% – including drastic cuts to the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds for water infrastructure.

These are some of the provisions that would harm our public lands, oceans, waters and wildlife. Similar provisions were removed from the final FY24 Interior Appropriations bill.

There are good members of Congress who worked on this bill, but the end result is an anti-environmental bill that pushes in the wrong direction. We want more special places where we can hike among trees and wildflowers; more shoreline where we can sit mesmerized by ocean waves and sightings of whale fins and tails; more abundant wildlife from the grizzly bear to the monarch butterfly. This bill makes it much harder to fulfill that vision.

We urge you to oppose H.R. 8998.

Thank you,

Lisa Frank
Executive Director
Environment America