Ron Johnson

Mr. President, Claims · 11 wordsmy fine State of Wisconsin has a gray wolf population problem, Procedure · 7 wordsbut that was not always the case.Procedure Claims · 122 wordsBack in the eighties and nineties, we had the opposite problem. We had an endangered wolf population, as probably most of the lower 48 States did. So back in 1978, under the Endangered Species Act, the gray wolf was listed as one of those endangered species.¹ The good news is, it worked. You can see from the chart here--that starts in 1980 to about the year 1999--our wolf population slowly started coming back, to the point that in 1999, the Wisconsin DNR agreed that once we hit 250 gray wolves in Wisconsin, that would be the point at which we could delist the gray wolf as no longer an endangered species.² We didn’t delist them. The population continued to grow and grow, Procedure · 2 wordsand unfortunately, ProcedureClaims · 74 wordsas much as we all value a healthy and sustainable gray wolf population, there is a point at which it gets too large and it starts threatening livestock, starts threatening people. I think the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognized that fact, and so in 2007, the gray wolf was actually delisted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.³ The problem is, in 2008, it was relisted by a Federal court here in DC.⁴ Procedure · 8 wordsSo in 2009, we took action once again.Procedure Claims · 112 wordsThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the gray wolf.⁵ That same year, that same court relisted it.⁶ Three years later--again, looking at the science, looking at the growing population--in 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted it.⁷ Three years later, the same DC court relisted it.⁸ In 2021, again, you can start seeing the explosion, quite honestly, in population. Our Wisconsin DNA states that about 1,250 is really the most population of gray wolf that the State can sustain.⁹ We had already hit that level, so U.S. Fish and Wildlife delisted it again, only to be overturned in 2022 by a Federal court decision in California this time, not DC.¹⁰ Positioning · 5 wordsWhy is this a problem?Positioning Claims · 134 wordsWe get report after report of families, farmers in Wisconsin who are bearing the burden of this back-and-forth, of the fact that the gray wolf is protected and the populations are really at the maximum level right now. It is threatening livestock. I mean, throughout Wisconsin, wolves are killing cows, horses, goats, sheep, cats, dogs. We have a sheep farm in Wisconsin, and a multigeneration herd of sheep was all wiped out except for one sheep, in one night.¹¹ In Price County, a dairy farmer had to sell his entire herd because the wolves kept killing his cows.¹² Wisconsinites have to carry firearms just to walk their dogs. A Wood County resident was forced to drive their children to school because the bus route changed because wolf tracks were there at the bus stop.¹³ Reasoning · 70 wordsSo, Mr. President, you know, I am just asking what makes sense when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has--one, two, three, four, five-- four times taken the gray wolves off the endangered species list, which, again, we all agreed was required.Unearned certainty We should have all agreed it was successful.Unearned certainty We are way past the delisting baseline established by the Wisconsin DNR. We are at the maximum sustainable limit here. The ask · 19 wordsI am asking consent to pass a bill that would simply delist them so that Wisconsin farmers, Wisconsin families, Reasoning · 14 wordsand Wisconsin children can feel safe in their residences, in walking about their properties.Off point The ask · 63 wordsSo, Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of S.¹⁴ 1306 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Procedure · 1 wordsCurtis).Procedure The question · 4 wordsIs there an objection? Procedure · 5 wordsThe Senator from New Jersey.Procedure