US Senate votes to repeal Alaska wildlife protections News
US Senate votes to repeal Alaska wildlife protections

The US Senate voted [roll call] Tuesday to approve House Joint Resolution 69 [text], a bill to invalidate an August 2016 regulation [text] protecting wildlife on federal lands from certain kinds of hunting. The “Non-Subsistence Take of Wildlife, and Public Participation and Closure Procedures, on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska” rule limited the hunting of predators including aerial hunting and killing animals in their dens in the National Wildlife Refuges of Alaska [list of refuges]. The bill that seeks to overturn the rule was proposed by Republican Congressman Don Young [official profile] of Alaska, who said that the existing rule “significantly undermines public participation and restricts the state’s ability to manage fish and wildlife” in a statement [text] released Tuesday. President Donald Trump [official profile] is widely expected [NPR report] to sign the bill into law.

The bill is just the latest measure of a Republican congress and administration that have sought to deregulate many areas, but with a particular emphasis on the environment and natural conditions. In January, Trump signed [JURIST report] an executive order requiring that two regulations be cut for every one put into place. Then in February, the Senate voted to overturn [JURIST report] a rule requiring coal firms to clean up waste from mountain top removal mining in an effort to prevent it from going into local waterways. Also in February, the Senate voted to overturn [JURIST report] an Obama-era gun regulation that required mental health information to be shared with the national gun background check system. At the end of last month, Trump signed [JURIST report] another executive order creating regulatory task forces in every federal agency to look through regulations and determine which ones “are burdensome to the US economy” and can be removed or consolidated.