Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Wildlife Conservation and Anti-Trafficking Act which will work to protect threatened or endangered species, reduce human rights violations, and limit the illegal operations of international criminal organizations.

This bill is a bipartisan and bicameral effort, sponsored in the House of Representatives by Representative Madeleine Bordallo and Representative Don Young, and I look forward to growing its support in the Senate.

Conservation violations and wildlife trafficking offenses are a global problem threatening biodiversity and animal welfare and facilitating significant criminal operations. Tackling this broad problem is complicated and compounded by insufficient penalties for offenders and the difficulty of maintaining U.S.-oversight on the global level.

This bill proposes to address these concerns by criminalizing elements of wildlife-trafficking operations under Federal racketeering and organized crime statutes. Classifying wildlife-trafficking crimes as ``predicate offenses'' under the Money Laundering Statute, Travel Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act enables prosecutors to administer substantial fines and prison-time for violations.

The bill recognizes the value of whistleblowers' information to direct investigations into wildlife-trafficking violations. It establishes a procedure to secure valuable, useful information from informants and provide sufficient compensation for the risks these individuals make to blow the whistle on illegal operations. To do so, the bill redirects penalty payments from wildlife-trafficking violations to fund whistleblower compensation programs. Monetary rewards to wildlife-crime whistleblowers come from partial share of penalty paid to the U.S. Government, providing no additional expense to American taxpayers.

The bill empowers Federal wildlife agents to operate abroad and provides them with direction to collaborate with local authorities. It instructs the Secretary of the Interior to adopt an International Wildlife Conservation Program consisting of four components: a regional component providing for protection of natural range habitats; a species component focusing conservation on most vulnerable species; an anti- trafficking component to curtail demand and limit poaching; and a convention component to implement the Convention on International Trade in the Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, CITES.

The legislation seeks to expand the Marine Turtle Act of 2004 by extending the legislation's coverage to include U.S. territories, and increasing the Act's scope to cover marine and freshwater turtles as well as tortoises.

Additionally, the bill proposes to strengthen the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Shark-Finning Measure under the Magnuson-Stevens Act by establishing that fines associated with violating these acts are to be used to benefit the same species that were affected.

Of particular concern to fishermen and women up and down the coasts, the bill addresses illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing violations by considering serious abuses as violations of Federal money laundering laws and therefore subjecting violators to substantial penalties.

Protecting wildlife requires a unified and strategic approach to end poaching worldwide. Congress must aggressively counter the relentless activities of poachers, traffickers, and transnational criminal organizations. The Wildlife Conservation and Anti-Trafficking Act is a strong response to crimes against wildlife; it will provide the necessary tools to curtail these illicit activities.

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