This March the United States Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a new regulation that would remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list.

The science is on the government’s side. Today there are an estimated 5,600 gray wolves in the United States and grey wolf population continues to exceed the appropriate management levels established by relevant state wildlife divisions and benchmarks from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

There are so many grey wolves roaming the west that they have become a real threat to America’s livestock. “Populations have reached critically high numbers in many states - so high, in fact, that wolves are not just preying on livestock, but pushing elk and deer onto U.S. farms and ranches, which leads to even more destruction,” The American Farm Bureau Federation said when the FWS announced their new regulation.

Unfortunately, wealthy environmentalists whose livelihoods do not depend on healthy herds of sheep and cattle disagree. They have promised to sue to stop the rule in federal court. And while it is almost assured FWS would win eventually, the lawsuits could delay implementation of the regulation for months and even years.

That is why I introduced the American Wild Game and Livestock Protection Act this week. The bill would avoid all litigation over the grey wolf’s endangered species status by simply declaring them not endangered pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.

This bill would in no way stop or even slow a possible relisting of the grey wolf if population numbers fall in the future. If the situation changes, if the science shows the grey wolf has become endangered again, then a future government could relist the grey wolf. This bill does not prevent that.

All this bill does do is cut out all the wasteful litigation taxpayers will face from radical environmentalists as they fight the science and this new regulation in court.