House Votes To Remove Longfin Smelt From Endangered Species Protections
Washington D.C.’s war on the native Central Valley fish, the smelt, continued this week with a House vote that would remove endangered species protection for the longfin smelt, a maligned fish that President Donald Trump has blamed for the lack of water allocations for California farmers, calling smelt “a worthless fish.”
The Los Angeles Times has some details:
House members passed the resolution, introduced by California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), in a 216-195 vote that followed party lines. The resolution now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate.
“We want to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s misguided decision to list the San Francisco Bay Delta population of the longfin smelt as being endangered,” LaMalfa, who represents a rice-growing region in Northern California, said before the vote.
He said the agency’s decision last year to declare the fish species endangered was “unscientific” and said it’s making it harder to deliver water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmers.
Here’s some more social media reaction:
