![Center for Biological Diversity](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012680/origin.jpg)
Tanya Sanerib, Center for Biological Diversity, tsanerib@biologicaldiversity.org
Kimiko Martinez, Natural Resources Defense Council, kmartinez@nrdc.org
Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration's Elephant, Lion Trophy Import Decisions
Despite Trump's Tweets, New Trophy Policies Still In Effect
The Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Trump administration today for allowing U.S. hunters to import elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe. The lawsuit aims to protect animals and resolve confusion created by the administration's contradictory announcements in recent days.
The suit comes days after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abruptly reversed an Obama-era ban on elephant trophy imports based on catastrophic elephant population declines. Fish and Wildlife also recently greenlighted lion trophy imports from Zimbabwe, despite the controversial killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015.
After massive public outcry, including from established Republican politicians and pundits, President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced a "hold" on issuing elephant trophy import permits late Friday night. President Trump suggested on Twitter that a new big-game trophy decision would be forthcoming. Unfortunately, the new federal policies allowing imports of elephant and lion trophies -- referred to as "positive enhancement findings" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act -- remain in effect.
"The Trump administration must clearly and permanently halt imports of lion and elephant trophies to protect these amazing animals from extinction," said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Trump's abrupt backpedaling after public outcry, while appreciated, shows how arbitrary this deplorable decision was. These incredibly imperiled creatures need a lot more than vague promises."
Today's suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, notes that the Trump administration acted arbitrarily in its rush to reverse course and open the United States to Zimbabwean lion and elephant trophies in a move that is contrary to the Endangered Species Act.
"Putting trophy imports 'on hold' isn't enough," said Elly Pepper, deputy director of Wildlife Trade for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Elephants are in crisis now. If we don't force the Administration to completely revoke its decision, President Trump could quietly start allowing these imports as soon as he stops facing criticism on Twitter."
The Trump administration's decision to lift the ban on these trophy imports relies heavily upon Zimbabwe having the plans, resources, funds, and staff to conserve elephant and lion populations. But, as today's lawsuit notes, in a country where corruption is already a huge concern, a military coup that began Nov. 14 has cast further uncertainty on Zimbabwe's rule of law. Zimbabwe scored an abysmal 22 out of 100 on Transparency International's 2016 Corruption Perception Index.
Poaching elephants for their ivory remains a significant threat in Zimbabwe. According to aerial surveys -- known as the Great Elephant Census -- Zimbabwe's elephant population decreased 6 percent between 2001 and 2013, when the aerial surveys were performed. Zimbabwe's elephant population is reportedly still in decline, largely due to poaching. Zimbabwe's lion population was estimated at roughly 703 lions in 2014.
The Great Elephant Census of savannah elephants conducted over the past couple of years revealed that fewer than 400,000 savannah elephants (not including the smaller forest elephants in western-central Africa) remain across the continent. The census results also documented the loss of 140,000 elephants over seven years due to poaching. In 2016, the IUCN found lions in Africa to be vulnerable to extinction noting an estimated 43 percent decline of African lion populations over 21 years.
Studies show that trophy hunting is only a small portion of the funding all tourists, including those who do not deplete wildlife populations, provide in African countries that allow trophy hunting. Meanwhile, corruption in Zimbabwe raises serious concerns about where trophy hunters' fees really go, according to assessments by the Obama administration and a 2016 report from House Natural Resources Committee.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.5 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at https://www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252GOP Attack on Biodiversity, Climate 'Sticks Finger in the Eye of American People'
Critics of a House appropriations bill that guts environmental agencies warn it's a sign of what the Republicans will do if they retake the Senate and the presidency next year.
Democrats and watchdog groups reacted with outrage on Friday as a U.S. House environmental subcommittee led by Republicans approved an appropriations bill that would reduce funding for two federal agencies and limit their ability to protect the environment.
The House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee voted to advance a bill to weaken the regulatory capacities of the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), cutting funding for conservation, climate action, national parks, and environmental justice initiatives.
"This bill sticks a finger in the eye of the American people who care deeply about clean air, climate change, endangered species, and responsible use of public lands," said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project. "It's a nasty wishlist to defund the priorities of protecting a livable future."
The fiscal year 2025 bill proposes a 20% cut to the EPA's annual budget, from $9.2 billion to $7.4 billion, including a $749 million cut to state and tribal assistance grants. It also proposes reductions to many Interior agency budgets, including a $210 million cut to the National Park Service and a $144 million cut to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Taking aim at the government's ability to regulate industry, most of the Republicans' spending allocations are below fiscal year 2024 and almost all of them are below the amount requested by the Biden administration.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement that the proposed EPA cut was "irresponsible" and that she was "greatly disappointed and frustrated" by the bill, which "completely disregards the reality of a warming planet and ignores the need for us to do more, not less."
Pingree's Democratic colleague, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the full appropriations committee, agreed.
The bill "promotes dirty energy, taking the side of fossil fuel companies and those who deny the scientific reality rather than address the escalating risk to our economy and national security presented by the changing climate and growing number of extreme weather events," DeLauro said in the statement.
Critics of the bill also objected to the large number of "poison-pill" riders that seek to undo Biden administration rules and undermine the Endangered Species Act by naming specific animals for which listing can't be funded. Per a Trump-era Interior rule, the legislation also delists most gray wolf populations from the ESA.
"This proposal is a hatchet job of disastrous proportion that in an unprecedented scale, targets our nation's most imperiled species and the law saving them from extinction," Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
The Republicans' bill includes proposed reductions to funding for clean water infrastructure projects, which Food and Water Watch (FWW) said was a step in the wrong direction—water and sewer systems need huge infusions of money just to meet current water quality standards.
"The proposed cuts would leave many with unsafe water and exacerbate the nation’s water affordability crisis, adding more pressure on household water bills at a time when families are already grappling with soaring costs for essential services," Mary Grant, a FWW campaign director, said in a statement, calling safe water "non-negotiable."
Grant said that to safeguard Americans' clean water from "foolishly political annual appropriations battles," Congress should pass the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, And Reliability (WATER) Act—a call she also made last year, when the same subcommittee advanced a similar bill.
The full appropriations committee will consider the bill on July 9. If the bill passes through the committee and then the full chamber, as last year's version did, it's unlikely to make headway in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate. However, critics of the bill warned that it's a sign of what the Republicans will do if they retake the Senate and the presidency.
Earlier this month, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said that he plans to gut federal agencies dealing with climate, such as the Interior Department. A union of EPA workers rebuked Trump for the remarks.
Supreme Court Refuses to Rescue Prison-Bound Steve Bannon
When he's done serving his four-month sentence for flouting congressional subpoenas, the former top Trump adviser faces a federal trial over the We Build the Wall scam.
Steve Bannon, a onetime senior adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump who was convicted of defying congressional subpoenas related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, must report to prison Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his 11th-hour bid to avert his four-month sentence.
In a single-sentence order with no public dissents, the Supreme Court stated that Bannon's "application for release pending appeal presented to the chief justice and by him referred to the court is denied."
In July 2022, a federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. That October, he was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500. Bannon has remained free pending appeals and has benefited from a pause imposed by Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee.
David Schoen, an attorney for Bannon, toldThe Washington Post on Friday: "I fully believe the conviction will be reversed and it is a shame to see it mishandled like this. He never should be going to jail for even a day."
However, Bannon not only faces four months behind bars for flouting Congress, another federal trial awaits him over his alleged conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the
We Build the Wall fundraising scam.
Giving Women 'Fewer Rights Than a Bag of Trash,' Iowa Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Abortion Ban
"This ruling will deny critical and lifesaving care to pregnant people in the state. Make no mistake: This law will result in the death of Iowans," said one abortion fund in the state.
"We now live in a state where pregnant people have fewer rights than a bag of trash," said the Iowa Abortion Access Fund Friday after the state Supreme Court ruled that a six-week abortion ban passed in 2018 can go into effect.
IAAF was quoting Iowa Supreme Court Justice Thomas Waterman, who noted in June 2023, when the court upheld an injunction against the ban, that the state prohibits police officers from searching residents' trash cans without a warrant.
"It would be ironic and troubling for our court to become the first state Supreme Court in the nation to hold that trash set out in a garbage can for collection is entitled to more constitutional protection than a woman's interest in autonomy and dominion over her own body," said Waterman at the time.
Advocates said that was exactly the status of reproductive rights in the state following Friday's ruling, in which a lower court was ordered to end a temporary block on the six-week ban.
In the 4-3 decision, the court stated that there is no constitutional right to abortion care, with Justice Matthew McDermott writing in the majority opinion that the right to an abortion is "not rooted at all in our state's history and tradition."
With so-called exceptions for pregnancies that endanger the life of the patient but no clarifying guidance from state officials about how urgent a pregnant person's medical condition must be before a doctor can provide an abortion, IAAF warned that the law will prove deadly for Iowans.
"No one should doubt Republicans are coming after contraception, surrogacy, and fertility treatments next, even though the majority of Iowans want those decisions to be made by women with their families and physicians."
"This ruling will deny critical and lifesaving care to pregnant people in the state. Make no mistake: This law will result in the death of Iowans," said the group.
The other so-called "exceptions" to the six-week ban include pregnancies that result from rape, if the crime is reported to police or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 45 days, or fatal abnormalities that are "incompatible with life."
But despite those exceptions—which in many cases since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, have threatened the lives of pregnant people—the ACLU warned that the decision "will force some people to remain pregnant against their will and rob them of their right to make private medical decisions."
Chief Justice Susan Christensen wrote in a dissent that the law "strips Iowa women of their bodily autonomy," while Planned Parenthood North Central States called the ruling a "devastating blow."
"Today's dangerous and reprehensible ruling will impact Iowans for generations to come," said Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of the group.
The ruling comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that emergency department doctors in Idaho can temporarily resume abortion care for people with pregnancy complications, but did not say that medical providers across the country can legally do the same, regardless of whether their state has an abortion ban—in accordance with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
Iowa state auditor Rob Sand said the state Republican Party will not stop at taking away people's right to obtain abortion care.
"The decision strips reproductive freedom away from Iowa women," said Sand. "No one should doubt Republicans are coming after contraception, surrogacy, and fertility treatments next, even though the majority of Iowans want those decisions to be made by women with their families and physicians."