House Republicans had big plans for Earth Day this year: They would pass a bill to narrow protections for endangered species that they had long seen as federal overreach.
It didn’t work out that way.
On Wednesday afternoon, Republican leaders suddenly canceled a vote on the measure after an initial procedural vote showed shaky support from party members. One Florida Republican, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, publicly aired concerns about the bill before the scheduled vote, writing on social media: “Don’t tread on my turtles. Protected means protected.” Her post contained an image of a yellow flag emblazoned with a sea turtle and the slogan “Don’t tread on me,” a phrase dating to the American Revolution that some conservatives have embraced in recent years.
The flip-flop on Wednesday was an embarrassing setback for Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. And it left uncertain the fate of the ESA Amendments Act, a sweeping bill that would limit protections for species whose populations are beginning to recover, among a slew of other changes.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he was trying to shore up support in the hopes of rescheduling a vote on the measure. “We just have a few provisions we’ve got to work through on it, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be able to vote on it,” he said.
Representative Kat Cammack, a Florida Republican, said she had raised concerns about a provision in the bill that would allow state and federal officials to exempt certain activities from Endangered Species Act restrictions. She said she worried that officials would codify an exemption that the Trump administration recently granted for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I have coastline in my district,” Ms. Cammack said, citing the possibility of an oil spill sullying her state’s beaches. “I want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to be the best stewards as possible.”
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