LIST Act of 2025
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Rep. Biggs, Andy [R-AZ-5]
ID: B001302
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.
January 3, 2025
Introduced
Committee Review
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another bill, another exercise in futility. The LIST Act of 2025 is a masterclass in doublespeak and bureaucratic jargon, masquerading as a genuine attempt to improve the Endangered Species Act. Let's dissect this mess.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The stated goal of HR 106 is to "provide for improved precision" in listing, delisting, and downlisting endangered species. Sounds noble, but don't be fooled. This bill is actually a thinly veiled attempt to weaken the Endangered Species Act by introducing more loopholes and exemptions.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act in several ways:
1. It creates a new requirement for the Secretary of the Interior to initiate delisting procedures if a species has recovered or if its recovery goals have been met. 2. It introduces a new standard for removing species from the list, allowing for removal based on "substantial scientific or commercial information" rather than strict adherence to the Act's criteria. 3. It expands the consideration of factors during 5-year reviews, including the possibility of finding errors in previous determinations.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved:
1. The Department of the Interior and its Secretary, who will be tasked with implementing these changes. 2. Environmental groups, which will likely oppose this bill as a threat to endangered species. 3. Industry lobbyists, who will probably support this bill as a way to reduce regulatory burdens.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a Trojan horse for special interests. By introducing more subjective criteria and loopholes, it will make it easier for industries like logging, mining, and drilling to exploit natural resources without adequate environmental oversight. The consequences will be devastating:
1. Weakened protections for endangered species. 2. Increased habitat destruction and fragmentation. 3. More opportunities for corruption and cronyism.
In short, this bill is a cynical attempt to undermine the Endangered Species Act under the guise of "improving precision." Don't buy it. This is just another example of politicians serving their corporate masters while pretending to care about the environment.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Biggs, Andy [R-AZ-5]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Donor Network - Rep. Biggs, Andy [R-AZ-5]
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 534 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.84 l Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA.85 l Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse, recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and economic activity. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.86 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an impartial conservation triage program by prioritizing the allocation of limited resources to maximize conservation returns, relative to the conservation goals, under a constrained budget.87 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to make all data used in ESA decisions available to the public, with limited or no exceptions, to fulfill the public’s right to know and to prevent the agency’s previous opaque decision-making. l Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and obtain necessary scientific research about species of concern from universities via competitive requests for proposals. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision- making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure conformity with the Information Quality Act.88 Office of Surface Mining. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) was created by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA)89 to administer programs for controlling the impacts of surface coal mining operations. Although the coal industry is contracting, coal constitutes — 535 — Department of the Interior 20 percent of the nation’s electricity and is a mainstay of many regional economies. The following actions should ensure OSM’s ability to perform its mission while com- plying with SMCRA and without interfering with the production of high-quality American coal: l Relocate the OSM Reclamation and Enforcement headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to recognize that the agency is field-driven and should be headquartered in the coal field.90 l Reduce the number of field coal-reclamation inspectors to recognize the industry is smaller. l Reissue Trump’s Schedule F executive order to permit discharge of nonperforming employees.91 l Permit coal company employees to benefit from the OSM Training Program, which is currently restricted to state and federal employees. l Revise the Applicant Violator System, the nationwide database for the federal and state programs, to permit federal and state regulators to consider extenuating circumstances. l Maintain the current “Ten-Day Notice” rule, which requires OSM to work with state regulators in determining if a SMCRA violation has taken place in recognition of the fact that a coal mining state with primacy has the lead in implementing state and federal law. l Preserve Directive INE-26, which relates to approximate original contour, a critical factor in permitting efficient and environmentally sound surface mining, especially in Appalachia.92 Western Water Issues. The American West, from the Great Plains to the Cas- cades Range, is arid, as recognized by John Wesley Powell during his famous trip across a large part of its length. Pursuant to an Executive Order signed by President Trump, and consistent with its authority along with other federal agencies, DOI’s Bureau of Reclamation must take the following actions: l Develop additional storage capacity across the arid west, including by: 1. Updating dam water control manuals for existing facilities during routine operations; and
Introduction
— 438 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise and their membership has too often been handpicked to achieve certain politi- cal positions. In the Biden Administration, key EPA advisory committees were purged of balanced perspectives, geographic diversity, important regulatory and private-sector experience, and state, local, and tribal expertise. Contrary to con- gressional directives and recommendations from the GAO and intergovernmental associations, these moves eviscerated historic levels of participation on key com- mittees by state, local, and tribal members from 2017 to 2020. As a result, a variety of EPA regulations lack relevant scientific perspectives, increasing the risks of economic fallout and a failure of cooperative federalism. EPA also has repeatedly disregarded legal requirements regarding the role of these advisory committees and the scope of scientific advice on key regulations.46 Needed Science Policy Reforms Instead of allowing these efforts to be misused for scaremongering risk com- munications and enforcement activities, EPA should embrace so-called citizen science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny, especially in areas of data analysis, identification of scientific flaws, and research misconduct. In addition, EPA should: l Shift responsibility for evaluating misconduct away from its Office of Scientific Integrity, which has been overseen by environmental activists, and toward an independent body. l Work (including with Congress) to provide incentives similar to those under the False Claims Act47 for the public to identify scientific flaws and research misconduct, thereby saving taxpayers from having to bear the costs involved in expending unnecessary resources. l Avoid proprietary, black box models for key regulations. Nearly all major EPA regulations are based on nontransparent models for which the public lacks access or for which significant costs prevent the public from understanding agency analysis. l Reject precautionary default models and uncertainty factors. In the face of uncertainty around associations between certain pollutants and health or welfare endpoints, EPA’s heavy reliance on default assumptions like its low-dose, linear non-threshold model bake orders of magnitude of risk into key regulatory inputs and drive flawed and opaque decisions. Given the disproportionate economic impacts of top-down solutions, EPA should implement an approach that defaults to less restrictive regulatory outcomes. — 439 — Environmental Protection Agency l Refocus its research activities on accountable real-world examinations of the efficacy of its regulations with a heavy emphasis on characterizing and better understanding natural, background, international, and anthropogenic contributions for key pollutants. It should embrace concepts laid out in the 2018 “Back-to-Basics Process for Reviewing National Ambient Air Quality Standards” memo48 to ensure that any science and risk assessment for the NAAQS matches congressional direction. Legislative Reforms While some reforms can be achieved administratively (especially in areas where EPA clearly lacks congressional authorization for its activities), Congress should prioritize several EPA science activity reforms: l Use of the Congressional Review Act for Congress to disapprove of EPA regulations and other quasi-regulatory actions and prohibit “substantially similar” actions in the future. l Reform EPA’s Science Advisory Board and other advisory bodies to ensure independence, balance, transparency, and geographic diversity. l Build on recent bipartisan proposals to increase transparency for advisory bodies, subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act49 as well as recommendations from the Administrative Conference of the U.S., to strengthen provisions for independence, accountability, geographic diversity, turnover, and public participation. This should include a prohibition on peer review activities for unaccountable third parties that lack independence or application of these same principles to non- governmental peer review bodies (including NASEM). l Add teeth to long-standing executive orders, memoranda, recommendations, and other policies to require that EPA regulations are based on transparent, reproducible science as well as that the data and publications resulting from taxpayer-funded activities are made immediately available to the public. l Reject funds for programs that have not been authorized by Congress (like IRIS) as well as peer review activities that have not been authorized by Congress. l Revisit and repeal or reform outdated environmental statutes. A high priority should be the repeal or reform of the Global Change Research Act of 1990,50 which has been misused for political purposes.
Introduction
— 524 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Rulemaking. The following policy reversals require rulemaking: l Rescind the Biden rules and reinstate the Trump rules regarding: 1. BLM waste prevention; 2. The Endangered Species Act rules defining Critical Habitat and Critical Habitat Exclusions;41 3. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act;42 and 4. CEQ reforms to NEPA.43 l Reinstate President Trump’s plan for opening most of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development. Personnel Changes. The new Administration should be able to draw on the enormous expertise of state agency personnel throughout the country who are capable and knowledgeable about land management and prove it daily. States are better resource managers than the federal government because they must live with the results. President Trump’s Schedule F proposal44 regarding accountability in hiring must be reinstituted to bring success to these reforms. Consistent with the theme of bringing successful state resource management examples to the forefront of federal policy, DOI should also look for opportunities to broaden state–federal and tribal–federal cooperative agreements. IMMEDIATE ACTIONS BLM Headquarters. BLM headquarters belongs in the American West. After all, the overwhelming majority of the 245 million surface acres (10 percent of the nation’s landmass) managed by the agency lies in the 11 western states and Alaska: A mere 50,000 surface acres lie elsewhere. Moreover, 97 percent of BLM employees are located in the American West. Thus, the Trump Administration’s decision to relocate BLM headquarters from Washington, D.C., to the West was the epitome of good governance: That is, it was not only well-informed, but it was also implemented efficiently, effectively, and with an eye toward affected career civil servants. Plus, despite overblown chatter from the inside-the-Beltway media, Congress, with bipartisan support, approved funding the move. Meanwhile, state, tribal, and local officials, the diverse collection of stakehold- ers who use public lands and western neighbors became accustomed to having top BLM decision-makers in Grand Junction, Colorado, rather than up to four
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.