Biden elected 46th President, poised to reverse Trump EOs, regulations

Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the former vice president and longtime U.S. senator from Delaware, has been elected President of the United States. The Associated Press declared on Nov. 7 that Biden and his running mate, California senator Kamala Harris, crossed the threshold of 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

According to Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas, more than 75 million Americans voted for the Democratic ticket in the Nov. 3 election. The incumbent President, Donald J. Trump, and vice president, Michael R. Pence, won just over 71 million votes.

Aside from winning states that, in recent decades, have consistently voted Democratic presidential candidates, Biden and Harris returned Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the Democrats after the Trump-Pence ticket won all three states by narrow margins in 2016. The Democratic candidates also carried Nevada and Arizona. At press time Biden and Harris also lead in Georgia.

A Biden-Harris administration is expected to act early to reverse Trump regime environmental policies. The President-elect has already indicated that he will re-join the Paris Agreement on climate change very quickly after being inaugurated. The U.S. officially exited the 2015 accord on Nov. 4. He may also restore the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, created by President William Jefferson Clinton in 1996, and Bears Ears National Monument, created by President Barack H. Obama in Dec. 2016, to those that existed before Trump dramatically scaled them back in Dec. 2017.

A Nov. 7 article in Bloomberg Law details other actions Biden can take early in his term to reverse Trump environmental policies.

The Electoral College will meet on Dec. 14 to cast the electoral votes that officially elect the President.

Logo by Jonathan Hoefler – https://joebiden.com/wp-content/themes/bexc/img/rm-logo-blue.svg via JoeBiden.com.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93057139

Colorado voters order wolf reintroduction

Canis lupus – image courtesy Wikimedia

Voters in Colorado have enacted by initiative a statute that requires gray wolves to be re-introduced to the state by 2023. According to results available at the website of secretary of state Jena Griswold, Proposition 114 passed with 50.64% of the vote.

Wolves will be reintroduced only to the Western Slope. The initiative includes a mandate to compensate ranchers who lose livestock to Canis lupus predation. In addition, the voter-enacted law requires the state parks and wildlife commission to use “the best scientific data available” to develop the reintroduction plan, hold hearings around the state to gather information to be considered in making the plan, and help ranchers to prevent wolf-livestock interactions.

The particular areas on the Western Slope that will again be populated by Canis lupus is left to the commission to determine. Prior to 1940 the animal ranged not only west of the Rockies, but across the state. In more recent years there have been wolf sightings in western Colorado, including a wolf pack.

Despite being added to the U.S. list of endangered and threatened species in 1974, and although gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in January 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service never moved to return the species to Colorado.

The Trump regime eliminated Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf on Oct. 29, 2020.

The state parks and wildlife commission rejected a 2016 proposal to reintroduce wolves. Colorado has, however, re-introduced several other species: turkeys during the 1980s, lynx in 1999, and bison in 2015, for example.