Bill Mandates Gray Wolf Delisting Within 60 Days, Blocks Court Challenges to Rule Reissuance

This legislation directs the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director to put a specific rule back into effect: the one from November 2020 (found at 85 Fed. Reg. 69778) that removed the gray wolf from the federal list of endangered and threatened species. The bill sets a tight deadline, requiring this reissuance within 60 days of becoming law. Its main purpose is straightforward – to reinstate the delisting of the gray wolf nationally.

No Day in Court

A key feature of this bill, outlined in Section 1, is that the mandated reissuance of the delisting rule cannot be challenged in court. Typically, major agency actions like delisting a species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are subject to judicial review. This allows stakeholders to argue whether the decision followed the law and scientific standards. By explicitly forbidding judicial review for this specific action, the bill removes that legal oversight mechanism. This means the decision to delist, once reissued under this mandate, would stand regardless of potential legal or scientific objections that might normally be raised in court.

Back to State Management

The immediate practical effect of reissuing the rule is that gray wolves lose federal protections afforded by the ESA across the areas covered by the 2020 rule. Management authority largely reverts to state and tribal agencies. This could lead to varied approaches, potentially including state-managed hunting or trapping seasons, and may reduce federal resources previously allocated for wolf recovery and protection under the ESA. The bill essentially fast-tracks the removal of these protections and insulates that specific action from legal recourse.